


アダルトフードレコード – Adulthood Record

by wallscrolls



Category: Kagerou Project
Genre: Everyone in this series is precious, Gen, Here it is the proof that I write too much, Sequel, Warnings are basically the same as canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-04-03 04:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 66,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4086787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallscrolls/pseuds/wallscrolls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What they both wanted was for things to go back to how they had been before. Back to back, one pair of eyes focused on the past, the other pair focused on the future, both wishing for different ends of the same thing. Only one had the power to move, but the other still had the power to influence. Turn around enough times, and you will lose sight of which direction is forwards and which is backwards.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 再起動エピローグ [Saikidou Epilogue] – Reboot Epilogue

Shintaro Kisaragi, 22 years old. Four years ago, there was a certain “incident” that led to his becoming friends with a strange group of people. They pulled him out of his solitary lifestyle and for a while, those people became his world; because they were the only ones who broke through to him. With their nonsense about “gangs” and “abilities”, they made him fight, suffer, and be happy, and somehow or another they seemed to have banded together and saved the world. Or maybe such a thing was just the delusions of kids trapped in a childhood that seemed to stretch on forever.

It had been four years since then, four long years. Or maybe it wasn’t even that long, compared to the ages of memories that still lurked in the back of his head to this day, occasionally surfacing in his dreams, turning them to nightmares. But those memories were hazy, like the hazy days that had produced them, and with no more need for them he’d moved on with his life. All of them had.

Sometime, when none of them had been looking, most of them became adults.

At some point Shintaro had gotten it in his head that he might try for college in America. But lacking the qualifications that American colleges were looking for, with two years of isolation to his history, he was forced to set his sights back at home. The year following that fateful summer, with American rejections pouring in, he passed the entrance exams for a prestigious university on the other side of the city with flying colors. It was like a bad joke.

Now it was the summer break of his senior year, and he was back home to visit his family for Obon. He had made a few different friends in university, but none of the ones who had taken trips around the country were close enough to him to have invited him, and the rest were the types to hole themselves in their rooms on their computers at home, if they even bothered to head home at all. Not that Shintaro could really blame them; that had been his plan for the summer as well. Momo was off on tour for his entire break, and without her around, there wasn’t anyone to drag him away from the screen. Well, not that he really minded, but as he sat in his old room using the old mouse he’d bought after the strangest few days of his life, it occurred to him that this was the first summer he wouldn’t be seeing any of them.

It wasn’t anything that had made them part ways in particular. It was just that sort of thing that happened as people grew older. Tsubomi had gone to a local university. Kosuke had a job in the area, and continued to live with Marry. Shuuya had moved elsewhere in the city and had his own job as well. Momo had continued her work as an idol, despite the loss of her ability. Takane and Haruka had planned on going to a university together, but after Takane failed the entrance exams three times, she started playing video games professionally. Haruka’s university was in a different city, and the two of them had moved there together. Hibiya was now in high school back in his home town, while Hiyori was attending a high school here. Ayano had spent the past three years doing part-time jobs around the city, seemingly without direction. When Shintaro had asked her about it once, she told him only that she was waiting for someone who probably wasn’t him.

It felt like the sort of thing that maybe should have upset him, but just knowing that they were each living their lives was more than enough for him to be satisfied with it.

 

* * *

 

The morning of August 14 began soon after 3 AM with an earthquake.

It was much stronger than most of the usual earthquakes, rattling nearly the entire house and knocking a few things around Shintaro’s room to the ground. Though a much nicer wakeup call than a siren, it had still startled him enough that he was halfway out of his bed before he realized that there wasn’t any cause for alarm.

He spent a few minutes on the ground, waiting for any aftershocks as he collected his broken pride. Even without Ene around, he still felt self-conscious about reacting to noise like that. When he once thought about it too hard, he realized that the one he’d been embarrassing himself in front of for over a year was not some malicious program but a real person, and ever since then he’d pushed his embarrassing mornings and unsightly evenings out of his mind any time they came back to the surface.

Shintaro took another few minutes to pick up various things around his room. Mostly it was useless items that had fallen off his desk, a few clothes that fell off the hangers in his closet, and his phone’s charging station which had tipped completely over. Satisfied with these, he resolved to check on the kitchen in the morning. This earthquake had seemed particularly bad, and if he hadn’t been mistaken, there had been some sounds of shattering ceramic mixed into the usual noise. He took one last look at his phone, rubbed a sleepy red eye, and climbed back into bed.

 

* * *

 

“Sorry! I tried to get my manager to pull some strings but she wouldn’t budge! >o< Guess I really won’t see my brother at all this summer, huh? ;o;”

Shintaro stared at the text message a few seconds before rolling his eyes. “Like hell it’d be useful getting me a ticket now,” he murmured to himself. Momo had been promising to get him a ticket to one of her local performances while he was back home as an apology for being busy, but when she had still been having trouble with it as of a week ago, Shintaro had given it up as a lost cause. There were only two more nights of Obon, meaning two more performances before she flew north, and then she’d be away until long after his classes started up again. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you some other time,” he sent in reply.

He put the phone back down, sighed, and returned to his computer.

“Hey, Master, are you spending today inside, too? How uncool!”

The voice made him freeze, an immediate, instinctive panic that four years later still remained ingrained in him. But… that was wrong, wasn’t it? He looked around his computer screen, even minimizing windows, glanced at his phone… The girl who had once been “Ene”, who had lived a year of her life in his computer out of some strange sense of duty and concern was now halfway across the country, probably yelling at a game where she was still playing in that sloppy, flashy style of hers. To say he _missed_ her would be a gross misunderstanding of the situation. But for those lost two years of his, she had been his only real company, and he hers. In the end, it had been something so close that the awkwardness of it prohibited them from so much as texting each other, only speaking when in the company of others.

The last time he’d seen her had been at a regional tournament held at his university’s facilities a year and a half ago, soon after she’d gone pro. He hadn’t intended on making contact with her at all, but even after she’d won the tournament readily, from his position on the sides he could tell she was a little disappointed. It was after most of the participants had left, leaving just the staff cleaning up afterwards, Takane, the runner-up, and a few reporters interviewing them. He didn’t even need to say anything to her. She spotted him standing by one of the setups off to the side, used just for fun, not even any of the official tournament matches, and even from across the room he could see the shift in her expression. She took off mid-question, making straight for him, trailing a couple of confused press in her wake.

“This is completely off the record! Personal rematch!” she’d declared to them when they’d finally caught up to her, after she’d already dumped her trophy and sat down next to him. Then, she turned to Shintaro, grinning. “If you win, the contract is renewed.”

“Oh? I was going to say, if I win, you tell me what the passwords you set on _those_ last three folders are.”

“Eh? You haven’t cracked them yet? Well, I like my conditions better, so that’s what we’re going with!”

“You really think you can beat me this time, huh?”

“I _know_ I can! You’re way out of practice, _Shintaro!”_

In the end, despite his win, he hadn’t gotten those passwords out of her. Her excuse had been something along the lines of, “What, did you really expect me to remember when it’s been so long since then?” Maybe she’d gotten the last laugh anyway. Maybe that was why he was still hearing her even now.

Before he could stop himself, he picked up his phone, scrolled through the contacts, and called Ayano. It was still unfathomably strange that the person whose suicide had driven him to cut himself off from everyone he could was back in the world again, resuming her life almost as if it had never stopped in the first place. But there were scars that had remained, maybe that Shintaro could only see because she had made herself so close to him. Her kindness had lost some of the warmth to it that he hadn’t realized he’d grown accustomed to. Or maybe she’d merely stopped showing him a warmth that wasn’t there in the first place.

She had lost that time in the kagerou daze. At twenty one, she still looked nineteen. She’d killed herself, but thanks to the snake, she never died. She simply walked into an unending world and waited there patiently for Shintaro to bring her back out again. Had she expected it to take two whole years? Had she expected it to take an eternity?

The call went to voicemail without picking up, and Shintaro hung up without leaving any message. Well, it was the middle of the day. Obon or not, retail life was sure to be busy at this time. Still, there had been a part of him that wanted to go back to those days where things had been so carefree, and hear her voice as cheerful as ever.

“How rare! Shintaro almost never calls me.”

Memories that sometimes seemed to come to life. Experiences lived and those merely passed along beyond the boundaries of time. Sometimes, especially when he got tired, it became hard to tell which had belonged to this loop and which had belonged to one of countless others. He’d woken up with the memory of stabbing his own neck nearly a hundred times by now. If nothing else, the fear of what he might recall had kept him from making a habit of dozing off in lectures like many of his classmates. In some ways, his life had been no less heavily affected than Ayano’s.

“Shintaro? Are you up yet?”

The familiar voice of his mother drifted up the stairs and through the door of his room, and he looked down at the phone still held in his hand. It was nearly 12:30; of course he was up. “Yeah, I am.”

“Oh, good! Can you come help me clean up downstairs? Did anything in your room break during the earthquake?”

Ah, right. He’d planned on checking the kitchen this morning. “A few things fell, but I didn’t find anything broken.” Pocketing his phone, he made his way downstairs.

Much more seemed to be awry downstairs. His mother had already cleaned up most of the kitchen, a large garbage bag full of shattered dishware sitting in the entryway, but their living room was still a mess. Books were off their bookshelves, one of which had toppled entirely. Photo frames were either knocked down or askew, and there were shards of broken glass in one corner. Leaving the glass alone for the moment, he righted the bookshelf and started picking up books.

He didn’t bother putting them back in order. For now, getting them off the floor was enough. Keeping the books sorted was more his mother’s thing, anyway. He’d just barely started making visible progress on the pile when a glint caught his eye, and he reached down to see what it was.

The serene smile of a fifteen-year-old Ayano met his gaze, and standing next to her, his fifteen year old self. It was the photo taken of them when they began high school together. Up until Ayano’s suicide, the picture had always sat on the table with other photographs of himself and Momo. During the period before he locked himself in his room, it had disappeared. He wasn’t sure when it had come back out, or if maybe his mother had hid it in the bookshelf, knowing he never went for her books. Shintaro hated looking at pictures of Ayano from before. The smile she always wore, looking back on it, always made him feel like he was forgetting something important.

“Shintaro?”

He looked up to find his mom staring at him, a strange look on her face. “… Yeah? What is it?”

“Your eyes looked... Oh, no, it’s nothing…” His mother seemed to waver for a moment, unsure, before seeming to recall what she’d meant to tell him and replacing her expression with a more cheerful one. “Oh! Because of the earthquake, there’s an emergency trash pickup in half an hour. Do you think you can take the garbage bag to the pickup site? It’s just a couple streets over.”

He took one look at the bright day outside the window and felt a part of himself curl up into a small ball and die. This was a terrible idea, and if he agreed to it, he was sure to regret it. But the words still came out of his mouth, the words of an adult who had learned that there were some obligations in this world that no amount of sunlight could halt. “Yeah… sure.”

 

* * *

 

He was right about this being a terrible idea. In fact, “terrible” didn’t quite do it justice. This was an absolutely abhorrent idea, something the likes of which was nearly guaranteed to result in his untimely death. The heat outside of the air conditioned house was oppressive and insufferable. To make things worse, Shintaro had been living away from home for over three years. So when his mother had told him the site was “a couple streets over”, he hadn’t even remembered that he needed to ask which direction “over” was. There had only been one choice in what seemed like just yesterday. What should have taken five minutes had already passed the twenty minute mark, and the time at which this whole venture became pointless was less than ten minutes away.

Shintaro couldn’t even tell if he’d been down this street before, but he finally found what seemed to be a place where a few different trash bags matching his own had been deposited. Without worrying about whether this was the proper location for his own neighborhood, he added his bag to the pile. But then, he thought to himself that maybe that wasn’t the responsible thing to do. What sort of trouble would befall his mother if the neighbors started spreading rumors that her eldest child couldn’t even put their trash in the proper place? Maybe all those not-so-unfounded rumors of his being a shut-in would come back to the surface like unearthed waste. Had there been rumors? Surely there had, if for no other reason than Ene attracting the attention of their neighbors at all hours of the night with all sorts of sounds. Or rather, it was unthinkable that there wouldn’t be rumors, with attention already brought to their house it was all but inevitable. Would looking around be more suspicious? Ah, but if he didn’t look around, he’d never know if someone was making a disgusted face in his direction. If he turned, then at least he would know what sort of fate he was in for.

Mustering far more courage than the gesture should have required, Shintaro began to glance around, at first hastily but slowly returning to a more normal of a speed. It was at that point that he spotted a familiar figure behind him. “Huh? Kosuke, what are you doing here?”

Kosuke didn’t give a proper answer, just a smile and a small wave. Though he had already been tall before, Kosuke seemed to have not been finished growing when Shintaro had first met him. In the intervening years, the distance between their heights had grown a few centimeters, though Shintaro would have liked to think that his own height had increased as well. His shorter hair seemed to give him a more mature appearance, though beyond that and his height, very little seemed to have changed about him.

“You look like you need a drink.” Kosuke made a beckoning motion and set off down the street, turning a corner around a nearby building. Shintaro soon followed.

He rounded the corner to find himself in a shaded alcove with a small collection of vending machines huddled against a building he never remembered seeing before, and a young man standing in front of them, already holding a can of soda. But it wasn’t the young man he was expecting to see. “… Shuuya? Where’s Kosuke?”

“Aah, that’s the thing, Older Kisaragi.” Shuuya, it seemed, hadn’t grown at all. He even still wore the same hoodie from years ago, with only hair several inches longer as a marker that he’d aged in the meantime. He tossed the can in Shintaro’s direction, and perhaps by sheer luck, Shintaro managed to catch it. It was cold to the touch, but he held it in his hands, not opening it just yet despite the burning in his throat nearly begging him to take a gulp, his gaze instead still locked on Shuuya. “We haven’t been able to contact Seto since this morning. You understand, don’t you?”

“Eh?” For a moment, despite the heat, Shintaro felt a chill run down his spine. “But, that’s…”

That wasn’t possible. That _shouldn’t_ be possible; the person he’d followed here was unmistakably Kosuke. But there was a way for Kosuke to have been here without being here at all, one possibility that should have long since become the domain of an entirely different person.

His eyes had been deceived. It was as simple as that.

“Of course, I wouldn’t have expected you to believe me if I’d just told you. Commander Kido didn’t until she tried out her own ability again herself, and you…” Shuuya pointed to him, the same smile from all those years ago still on his face, “well, I don’t think you even learned to control it at all, right? What little there is to control, I mean.”

Despite the fact that Shintaro was having difficulty taking in what Shuuya was telling him, he felt a spike of indignation at that, an automatic reaction to the insult from this person he disliked primarily for having known too much all along. “So you’re here to tell me our abilities are back, since I wouldn’t be able to see for myself? What’s the point of even talking to me, if that’s your opinion of me?”

“The point is, this is the sort of story where we need to bring in the main character before we make any moves.”

Shintaro gave him a flat look. “Don’t go doing stupid things like declaring me the main character with a straight face. If anything, that would be Marry, or maybe Ayano…”

Shuuya simply grinned back. That grin that he never seemed to lose. “Really? But being called the main character really suits you! The trump card who is surprisingly useless most of the time, but then at the very end, appears to save the day!”

Shintaro wasn’t sure what he was more pissed at. The way that Shuuya was continuing to say all this with a straight face, or the way that he was in fact describing pretty well the way that events had transpired four years ago. “You always manage to make things sound the most disgusting… Besides, that still could apply to any of the three of us.” An admission that Shuuya hadn’t been _wrong_.

“Right, right. But there’s still one thing that you have that makes you the most suited for a main character type!” Though his smile didn’t change, his tone shifted, taking on a hint more seriousness. “If the rest of us screw this up, we need those eyes of yours to see everything that happens. Because _you_ are the only one who can learn from the mistakes of all the Mekakushi Dan who have ceased to exist.”

Shintaro’s gaze dropped, and he finally opened the can of soda he’d been given and took a long, hard drink. Shuuya really did make things sound disgusting. The thought that he was sought out just in case everyone was sent back to square one…

“Wait, you think there’s a chance Marry might rewind things again? I thought we’d moved past that.”

“We all did.”

The voice immediately to his left made him jump, startling and jerking his head to look. Though she hadn’t approached them at all, hadn’t moved in close, there was no mistaking that the woman was indeed standing right next to him right now. Her hair wasn’t quite so long anymore, but aside from that there seemed to be very little change to her.

“Commander, you found us!”

“Hey, hey,” Shintaro mumbled, redirecting the frustration over his own embarrassment, “if you can properly control it, don’t go sneaking up on people like that.”

“Sorry, old habit.” Tsubomi said it quickly and easily, though there did seem to be something in her expression that was a bit regretful, or perhaps just upset. But by the time she’d turned to look at Shintaro, it had cleared from her face. “Did Shuuya already tell you that we cou—?”

“That’s no good! Since we’re reforming the Mekakushi Dan, we need to go back to our codenames!”

This time at least Shintaro had someone to exchange a flat look with, and looking at his own expression perfectly mirrored back by Tsubomi, he could only conclude that she was thinking the exact same thing. “Are you sure this guy is an adult?”

“Not at all. That’s just what he claims.” She gave a heavy sigh and ran a hand through her hair. “Did _Kano_ already mention, we haven’t been able to contact Kosuke?”

“Seto.” Suddenly, there was a fist against Shuuya’s ribs, and he made a soft “oof!” sound, cringing.

“… Seto.”

“Y… yeah, he did mention something like that.” And it was good to know now that Tsubomi was still prone to punching people, before Shintaro had the chance to experience her wrath himself. “Is that unusual?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it were this joker, but a reliable guy like Seto? If he’s working, he’d at least have called back during his lunch break. But… he’s currently the only one in contact with Marry.”

“… And something’s probably happened to her.”

“That much is obvious.” Both Tsubomi and Shuuya turned to look straight at him, both pairs of eyes a bright red. Shintaro wondered when such a thing had stopped being strange to him.

He shrugged, drinking down the rest of his soda. “Okay, so you’ve found me. What are you going to do now?”

“Well, we’re trying to gather our forces!” Shuuya piped up cheerfully. “Or, those that we can reach. Is Kisaragi back at your home?”

“No, she’s—hey, why am I ‘Older Kisaragi’ while Momo’s just ‘Kisaragi’?!”

“Senior members have priority! Since she joined first, she gets to be Kisaragi! So she’s not there?”

Shintaro bowed his head in frustration for a moment. The fact that his little sister was senior to him in _anything_ was a shame that no older brother should have to endure. It completely went against the sort of relationship that was established. Just the thought of it set a heavy weight on his heart that brought a cringe to his face, twisted in pain at the sheer wrongness of it. Finally he gathered himself and lifted his head, but from the reactions of the other two he could only conclude that he hadn’t managed to completely school his expression first. Undaunted, he continued. “She’s on tour right now. Tonight she’s performing at some big venue a few stations from here…”

“Right, right, got it. So we’ll have to get her afterwards. Why, this is probably going to be her biggest concert in years! We can’t very well interrupt that!”

The way Shuuya pointed it out made Shintaro wonder if he should warn Momo that her own ability was probably back. Well, Momo was an adult too now, and had dealt with her ability for a few years at least. ‘She’ll be fine’ was perhaps a bit too optimistic of a thought, but ‘she can handle it’ certainly seemed right.

“So, then. There’s Konoha and Ene—”

“Leave them for last, please.” If only because the last thing Shintaro wanted was for Takane to know that she had free reign over his electronics once more. And besides, Takane had already suffered a lot with how Haruka’s ability had affected him before. Even Shintaro had managed to gather that much from her. Maybe not knowing would be kinder to both of them.

“Oh? Is that fear I hear? ‘Ah, Ene’s ability is so scary! If she learns she can use it again, surely my life will become hell!’ That sort of thing?”

Shintaro cast Shuuya a glare. “If _you_ had her living in your computer for so long, you’d be scared, too.”

“Ah! An unexpectedly honest answer! Alright, then, we can set them aside for now. That just leaves Hibiya.”

“So he gets to use his first name, huh…? Hm? What about Ayano?”

The moment he asked it, it seemed to be the wrong question. Tsubomi’s gaze fell, and even Shuuya’s unwavering smile took on a different edge to it.

“Sis hasn’t been answering her phone for a week. It’s not that unusual, you know? If we ever sound like we’re in trouble, she’ll respond right away, but otherwise she seems to just forget sometimes.” Tsubomi kept her eyes on the ground, even as she spoke. “She might even have gone tracking down Kosuke on her own without even thinking to call us back. That’s how she is.”

So that was why she hadn’t picked up earlier.

“Isn’t this great, though?” Shuuya continued, with an air as if trying to dispel the tension that had suddenly come up without trying to directly do so at all. “We’re getting the whole group back together! It’s almost like an epilogue!”

“That’s not what that word means,” Shintaro grumbled. “It’s not much of an epilogue if something new happens. Then it’s just a sequel. With any luck, it won’t just become the same story again…”

“Do you think it’s that likely?” Tsubomi said in a voice that was too loud to be a mutter, as she finally moved forwards and put some change into one of the vending machines.

“… No idea. I don’t think I remember anything that’s ‘now’ without it being the real now.” He shrugged, slumping against a wall that separated the alcove from the next plot over, but soon stood up again as the heat from the sun-lit stones quickly leaked through his clothes to his skin. “I can’t say that with any confidence, though. Like Kano said… I can’t exactly control my ability.” Shintaro squeezed his empty soda can enough to deform the shape, before dropping it into the recycling bin.

“Well, I’m sure you’re not the only one! Speaking of, how about we call little Hibiya? Do either of you have his number?”

“Why would we—?”

“I do,” Tsubomi cut Shintaro off, her cell phone already in her free hand as she scrolled through the contacts. She looked up to find him making an unpleasant expression in her direction. “… What’s that look for? It was your sister’s idea. ‘A good commander should be able to contact all of her troops.’” She pressed the call button and brought the phone to her ear, gaze already shifted to some nondescript point off in the distance along the street as the dial tone began. “Well, by the time she’d said that, I’d already thought I wouldn’t need to be a commander anymore…”


	2. テレフォンウェブ – Telephone Web

It felt a bit too motherly for Tsubomi Kido’s tastes, but she couldn’t say she disliked it.

In some ways, the cooking class was comforting. It didn’t require studying, and there was very little unfamiliar territory. She didn’t need to talk to the other students outside of classes. Even within the class, group projects were rare; she’d often hear the other girls saying things like, ‘Ah, remember when we made this in groups in junior high? Now we’re on our own!’, but Tsubomi had no such memories or nostalgia. To her, it was just another thing to make.

Even after being relieved of the burden of her ability, she still seemed to have trouble socializing with most people her own age. Perhaps that sort of thing was inevitable when she hadn’t spent any extended length of time in a real school since her death. Or maybe it was a personal fault of her own, only accentuated by the distance her ability gave her from “normal”.

At any rate, she’d decided she’d wanted to help out kids who also had bad lives or couldn’t seem to get along with others, without judging them for anything that might be a part of their circumstances. So being not too unintelligent, she’d studied hard enough to get into this junior college. It seemed different enough from grade school that she would be able to manage it, and as of nearly a year and a half later, Tsubomi was still enrolled. So that could be considered a victory.

But that still didn’t change the fact that she was failing to make friends. Or rather, she didn’t connect with anyone new on the level of considering it a true friendship. Nothing came close to the connection she had felt to the rest of those unfortunate children she’d naively let call her Commander four summers ago. Perhaps that too was inevitable, when there had been a dark stain known as “fate” branding all of them with similar marks. But those red eyes had long since faded from all of them, all except the one child they truly belonged to.

Moving on with her life had been surprisingly easy, once the grief over their father’s passing had settled down. Ayano’s return took a little longer to get used to, but it was a change that she was grateful for, so even its strangeness didn’t make her uncomfortable. For her part, Ayano had wanted to go back to school. But how would they have even managed something like that? Ayano hadn’t even been simply “missing” for two years; she’d been clearly marked as deceased. Without any adults to help them figure out how to manage reversing such a declaration, they had no choice but to eventually give up.

“It’ll be okay. I was never that smart, anyway. Once I’m old enough to have graduated, I’ll start working, and maybe no one will question too much.”

The most fortunate thing had been that their father had probably written his will of his own volition. He probably thought he would leave his children a reasonable amount, or maybe he had even had some awareness of what his snake had been doing all along. Either way, the four of them wound up inheriting the large sum that had been amassed, allowing them to live comfortably even past the present day without needing to find jobs to sustain themselves. But such a thing was boring, and their former anxieties were no longer around to hold them back. Each one of them had picked a direction, and at their own paces, began walking.

Tsubomi’s path had led her here, helping out with preparations for tonight’s Obon celebration with the rest of her class, on the morning of an August 14th whose late-night earthquake somehow had the feeling of a warning of things to come.

Strangely, the phone in her pocket began to vibrate only fifteen minutes into the class.

A familiar name displayed on the screen, and after checking that she hadn’t set the stove’s flame too high underneath a pan, she answered it. “Sorry, Shuuya, I’m in the middle of cooking. Call me back in an hour.”

“Ah, sorry, sorry, but now’s a bad time for it to be a bad time! Think you get somewhere where we can talk privately?”

The cheerful tone pissed her off, and she almost hung up then and there. Shuuya hadn’t been as cheerful since they lost their powers, but Tsubomi suspected that it had a lot to do with him no longer pushing himself for the sake of the rest of them. But that just meant that any time he _was_ using this tone of voice, he was doing it completely deliberately. She’d thought she’d made it clear how seriously she was taking this, so to hear him blow her concerns off like that made her wish he was next to her so she could give his ribs a good jab. “I shouldn’t even have answered. I’m—”

“Hey, Commander.” The old nickname cut her off before she finished her threat of hanging up on him. When Shuuya continued, his tone had lost its joking edge, though it remained light and easy. “This morning, I remembered a black cat I once had a fondness for. I must have really missed it, you know? Because when I looked in the mirror, I saw it staring back at me.”

Despite the heat from the stove in front of her on this hot summer day, Tsubomi felt her whole body go cold. A black cat Shuuya knew. A black cat, which she’d once seen dancing on a table at the orphanage—

“S-say that sort of thing sooner, idiot!” She’d raised her voice before she’d even realized she’d raised it. She didn’t have to look up to know some of her classmates had to now be staring in her direction, but she didn’t even have the ability to be anxious about it right now. She flicked off the gas on the unit in front of her and rushed out, not even remembering to leave her apron behind, cell phone clutched to her ear as if her life depended on it. Once in the hallway, she looked around and spotted no one, but… maybe. Maybe if Shuuya was being serious, all she had to do was reach for the controls she’d long since lost. “Start talking.”

“I already tried calling Seto a couple times, but he didn’t answer. Of all the times, this is the most inconvenient, isn’t it? Anyway, I tried it out, and it seems it’s really back. I was wondering if yours had returned as well.”

“Don’t know. Maybe. I haven’t found a mirror yet, and there’s no one—ah!“

At just that moment, she was interrupted by the sound of the door behind her sliding open. Tsubomi jumped and stumbled forwards, whipping around to see the instructor sticking his head out into the hallway, and froze. He glanced down the hall in each direction then let out a frustrated sigh. He mumbled under his breath, something about ‘that flakey girl’, completely ignoring Tsubomi directly in front of him as he closed the door. It took a couple seconds before she finally relaxed again.

“… Yeah. Looks like my ability is back after all.”

“That’s good to know, though I suppose it wouldn’t be right to call it good news, hm? Hey, your university is nearby the Kisaragi’s place, isn’t it? How about we meet up there?”

“Wha… meet up? Shuuya, what stupid thing are you scheming…?”

“Kano!” Shuuya corrected her in a singsong voice. “I thought this would be a good opportunity to get the Mekakushi Dan back together! Why, isn’t this a mystery we need to solve? What happened to Marry to give us all back our abilities… like a detective novel! Well, it won’t be really fun if the answer is something simple, but until Seto calls back we won’t really know.”

“Don’t treat it like it’s a joke…!” Sometimes, it was easy to forget that Shuuya’s ability had scarred him just as deeply as hers and Kosuke’s had scarred them. Shuuya made it easy to forget. And that spoke to how deeply it scarred. But it didn’t make such things what she had in mind when she heard him talking about it as if it were a game. “I’m not going to Momo’s place out of the blue like that!”

“No? How unfortunate! Because Older Kisaragi goes to a normal school that probably has off for Obon. They’re probably both there right now. Do you think either of them would know about their abilities already? Why, Kisaragi can’t control hers, and her older brother’s is all but useless most of the time!”

The reminder of Momo’s trouble with her ability struck a protective chord in Tsubomi, and she hated that that was probably what Shuuya had been aiming for. “You did that on purpose…”

“Eh? Did what?” He knew what, and Tsubomi knew that he knew, but Shuuya continued on anyway as if he actually were innocent in all this, talking in his usual fast way that prevented her from so much as interjecting. “Ah, do you think if we gave Older Kisaragi warning, he’d run away? He seems like the sort of guy who would do something like that. Maybe we should just show up unannounced. You remember where they live, right? Actually, I was already on my way, so I’ll probably be there first. I’ll text you when I get there and give you an update! Well then, see you soon!”

“Hey—! _Kano!_ ” But he had already hung up on her. She could only stare at her phone, an unpleasant look on her face. “What’s even up with that guy…?”

A moment later, though, her expression went serious. That was right. Even back in those days, Kano dealt with difficult things by taking them on by himself, much to her own frustration. The fact that he had told her where he was going, what his plan was… maybe that was progress.

She’d hoped that he would pick up when she called, but instead the voicemail message began playing. Tsubomi sighed. “Hey, Kosuke. Shuuya said he called earlier, but I guess I had to try anyway.” She paused. “I’m… not sure what he’s told you, but, it seems like things might be serious right now. We’re worried about you and Marry, so give me a call back when you can, okay? Later.”

There. Hopefully that was enough, though she had little doubt that all she would have needed to say was ‘call me back’ and that would have been fine.

… One more call to make. Another voicemail to leave.

“Hi, Sis. Hope you’re doing well. It feels like it’s been a while since we last spoke, but I wanted to let you know what’s going on. Something seems to be happening, and we’re not sure what, but Shuuya decided we should reform the Mekakushi Dan. Funny how it just keeps coming back, huh?” She gave a laugh, but it was half-hearted, weak, and died quickly. “Anyway, we’re going to meet up with Shintaro and Momo right now. Kosuke isn’t answering his cellphone either, so we’re a bit worried about him. We’re—ah, listen to me. It almost sounds like I’m talking to your grave,” and just barely in time she held herself back from adding ‘again’, feeling a familiar prickling sensation spread through her nose and eyes. Tsubomi took a deep breath, trying to muster her strength before she continued. “Call me back when you get this, even if it’s just so I know you’re okay. I’m not going to ask you to go along with Shuuya’s childish whims, but if you’d like to help out,” her voice softened a little, “we’d be happy to have you around this time. I guess… that’s about it. End of report.”

Tsubomi hung up, gave a heavy sigh, and looked down to realize she was still wearing the class apron.

 

* * *

 

Unexpectedly, the dial tone ended with a clicking sound and a hesitant voice. “Uh… hello?”

Come to think of it, this was the first time someone had answered her calls all day. “Hibiya, it’s been a while.”

“Um…” The voice on the other end seemed to hesitate for a bit, making a frustrated noise. “I don’t have this number saved… Who is this?”

… Either he hadn’t entered her number when he’d been told to, or Hibiya had exchanged his phone for a new one and lost all his old contacts. She was just going to assume the second one. “It’s Kido. Remember? Momo made us trade numbers…”

“Ah-aah, ahaha, right, right! Sorry, must’ve… typed it in wrong! Yeah…”

He’d most certainly never tried to enter her number in first place. It pissed her off, but luckily for him, she had more important things to worry about. “Well, now you have it. If you don’t mind, I’m going to get straight to the point. Feel free to find somewhere to speak privately before answering me. Have you noticed anything strange about your eyes today?”

“Huh…?” She knew that he had to realize what she was asking. Even if Hibiya only had his power for a short time, his adventure with their little gang had left an impression on him. A few seconds ticked by without a response, and Tsubomi started to wonder if he was moving to a different place, when suddenly his voice screeched through the phone, catching her completely by surprise. “ _EH?!_ You mean I’ve had that the whole time and I’ve just been sitting here?!”

“Wh… what?” Now Tsubomi was the one confused. Shintaro and Shuuya, having heard at least the initial screech, were both looking at her with surprised expressions.

“Oh, man, I’ve wasted so much of my day already! Ugh, this sucks! Commander, you’re sure our power things are back?”

“Ah—er, well, mine definitely is, and Kano’s as well…” Hibiya certainly changed his tone quickly…

“Then I’m going to go find Hiyori! I’ll call you back later, alright? For sure! Ugh, girls are such a pain—” Hibiya’s voice cut off as he disconnected the call, and Tsubomi was left to wonder what the heck had just happened.

“Ah, how tragic that we never truly get over our first love!” Shuuya spoke up once Tsubomi took the phone from her ear and gave it an incredulous look. “Still searching for the girl he once lost four years ago, truly this must be what they call the springtime of youth!”

“It’s summer,” Shintaro responded in a deadpan. “And it’s really hot. Hey, do we have to keep standing out here? Can’t we go somewhere with air conditioning?”

“Aren’t you just trying to buy more time before we call our dear Ene?”

“…”

It seemed Shuuya had hit the bull’s-eye. But there was something pitiable about that, and so Tsubomi shrugged. “Well, there’s not much of a rush, and it _is_ really hot. Hey, Kisaragi, have you been back to that mall since last time?”

Shintaro gave her a look of horror, as if she’d asked him to choose between Ene and an untimely, undignified, unlikely death. Which had, in a way, been his two options last time he’d been at said mall, so thinking about it like that she couldn’t blame him. Unfortunately, urban development had not progressed so rapidly that another mall had been built up in competition in the immediate area, so unless they wanted to walk even further or head to someone’s home, they had few options.

“I’ll take that as a no. Look, between Kano and I, we can cover you, so it’s not like something like that will happen again.”

“That time, I got caught on purpose, you know! Just to keep you company, since your sister was so worried about you!” When Shuuya lifted his hands, they were bound together, the same way they had appeared when he’d been a hostage. But then, as if it had been a trick of the light, a moment later the restraint was gone. Tsubomi rolled her eyes, but Shintaro’s gaze seemed to be glued to the ground.

“Fine! Fine, I get it. Let’s get out of this damn heat already.” He started to storm off, and she had to quickly follow to keep him masked under her power. Shuuya followed soon after, easily falling back into the routine they’d left behind what felt like ages again.

“Hey,” he murmured, getting close to her so he could speak without Shintaro easily hearing. “Does Older Kisaragi know where he’s going? Earlier I followed him around for ten minutes as he tried to figure out where the local trash drop is.”

Ten minutes… what sort of person has to search for a trash drop for ten minutes? She could feel her expression sour, and she cast a glance towards the man in front of them. “Possibly… maybe. Well, if he starts going the wrong way, we’ll say something. But, setting that aside…”

She glanced sideways at Shuuya, only to be greeted with that foxlike grin of his. They hadn’t seen each other for over a month, and that was without their abilities. She couldn’t be sure, but…

Without giving Shuuya time to react, she reached over and gave a hard pinch to the skin on his arm. He jumped, his expression shifting to a slight cringe with an inhuman quickness, sweat suddenly appearing on his face and faint dark circles appearing under his eyes. Tsubomi slowly let go and all those things began to fade, but Shuuya’s attempt at subtlety was useless when she’d already noticed the differences. “Hey now, what was that for, Commander?”

“… If I find out you’re pushing yourself again, that won’t be the only one,” she replied under her breath. She wasn’t going to ask Shuuya not to abuse his ability again. Not when she was hiding presences for no better reason than it’s what felt comfortable. For things they so hated, they sure were quick to go back to using them. Maybe it was the same for Kosuke. No, of anyone, it would be Kosuke who wouldn’t want to go back to using his. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t reachable.

Shuuya’s grin shifted into something that looked more like a smile, more like an expression she’d seen in the intervening years where they didn’t have anything to hide behind. “Right, right. I understand.” She wasn’t sure she could entirely believe the expression when he still was hiding the dark circles, though.

 

* * *

 

Somehow or another it seemed Shintaro had indeed known the way to the department store, as without any correction he’d led the other two the entire way there. They headed inside, but just as they stepped inside to be greeted with the first blast of cool air, Shintaro stopped short. He seemed to go limp, gaze glued to the ground, just barely managing to stay upright on his feet.

“H-hey, keep moving! If we stop here, someone’s sure to bump into us—!” Tsubomi gave him a shove, and with a bit of effort managed to get him the rest of the way in and off to the side before finally relaxing. When she caught a look at his face, though, she startled to find that his eyes were a bright red. “Hey, Kisaragi…” He didn’t respond. She turned to Shuuya, a bit at a loss. He didn’t seem to have any better idea, giving a small shrug, but a moment later he silently nodded in Shintaro’s direction. She turned back to see his eyes were dark again, and his gaze had shifted to the wall next to them.

“We didn’t make it out of here, once,” he mumbled, causing Tsubomi to jump despite the quietness of it.

“Kisaragi…?”

“The police broke down one of the barriers, so those terrorist guys started shooting us one by one to try to get them to back off. I don’t know what happened afterwards… but Kano got shot pretty early. He might have even been first. I wasn’t too far behind.”

Hearing it sent a chill down Tsubomi’s spine. It was a very abstract sort of terror. After the incident four years ago, once they’d all seemed to have more or less regained their bearings, Shintaro had explained what parts of it he understood. Being told that they were the “best outcome”, that all of them had died a countless number of times in a countless number of ways to bring about this one future, was something that Tsubomi couldn’t really wrap her mind around. As someone who forgot each time, or so she was told, she didn’t have any real sense of the suffering that must have happened for each loop that had ended in tragedy. It was hard to consider any of that “real”. But Shintaro saw it, he knew about it, he remembered it and recalled it even to this day. “… Sorry. We can probably take the train somewhere else, since the only reason to hide is my own selfishness…”

“No, it’s just…” he ran fingers through his hair as if frustrated. “Stupid. I shouldn’t have brought it up. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway. Those days are gone.”

Movements slightly jerky, Shintaro turned and quickly made for the elevator. Tsubomi wanted to follow him, to say something, but what could she really say? Shintaro had lived a thousand lives and died a thousand deaths, and all she had was living on with this one, this one lucky life she had been so close to losing because she’d lost it so many times before in ways she’d never know.

He left the edge of her ability to conceal him and Shuuya gave her a small nudge, knowing where the boundaries of her power were almost as well as she did. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting pretty hungry! Ah, how about we reclaim our idiot hero and go get some—oof!”

He cut off as Tsubomi elbowed him, for a brief moment forcing the shadows back underneath his eyes. “Idiots shouldn’t call other people idiots.”

She wasn’t sure if Shintaro had heard some vague echoes of them talking or if he just suddenly realized he wasn’t being followed, but either way he turned and gave a surprised look towards the corner where at best he’d be able to tell that there were probably multiple people there. It took a few seconds before the two of them appeared in his vision properly, as Tsubomi walked forward and brought him back within her influence.

“Your pain isn’t stupid. Honestly, you’re just as bad as Shuuya.”

“Kano!”

She didn’t even bother hitting him for that one.

Shintaro opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think better of it, closed it, and lowered his gaze. Tsubomi sighed, walked straight up to him, and gave him one of her gentler punches in the ribs. He was caught completely off guard, making a sound that was more surprise than pain and stumbling back a bit before looking up at her in shock.

“The Mekakushi Dan supports each other. Trying to handle things on your own without talking to the rest of us is forbidden. Have you even grown up at all, Kisaragi?”

“Hey, don’t say that like someone who still punches people can be called an adult herself…”

“Well, if that’s what the Commander says, you have to listen!” Shuuya cheerfully clapped him on the shoulder. “Anyways! Since we’re here, how about we eat something? It’s well past lunchtime and I’ve been spending my time tracking down Older Kisaragi!”

“Doesn’t that make it your own fault? But… yeah, food might be good…” Shintaro seemed to have not eaten yet either, and Tsubomi was in the same situation.

“Then, the eighth floor.” Her eyes slowly faded to their usual dark shade as she made her way towards the elevators. In such tight spaces it was impossible to hide, and it’s not like the three of them particularly had a reason to, anyway. Shintaro cast an uncertain look in her direction, but still kept pace with her, and before long the three of them were cramped together in the tight space with lots of other people seeking an escape from the heat and maybe a meal as well.

Tsubomi noticed Shintaro stiffen as they passed the seventh floor, but the elevator didn’t even stop there.

The eighth floor was busier than even the first, with nearly every restaurant having lines waiting outside the entrance. It seemed it was still early enough that the main lunch crowds hadn’t cleared just yet, and Tsubomi let out a soft huff. “Well, it looks like we’ll be waiting no matter what we do. Do either of you have any preference?”

“Ooh, how about pizza?”

“Isn’t it too warm out for pizza?”

“Why, Older Kisaragi, we’re in the air conditioning! Surely we could have even hot tea in an environment such as this!”

Shintaro sent a deadpan glare Shuuya’s way, but Tsubomi’s flat look was directed at Shintaro. “Pizza isn’t the sort of thing you stop eating just because it’s summer, Kisaragi.”

“I-I know that! It’s just that, my mother would almost never get pizza in the summer…”

Shuuya thought for a moment, then clapped his hands together. “Ah, I know! It’s probably because of _that!_ ”

“… ‘That’?”

“You know, you know! The deal where takeout pizza is half priced when it’s raining!”

“There’s such a thing…? Actually, no, if that’s real, then…” His expression soured, then his head drooped.

“Well, don’t worry! We have the money to pay for things, so let’s get in line already!” Before either of the others could protest, Shuuya made his way to the entrance of the nearby restaurant to put his name on the waiting list.

Tsubomi took the opportunity to move closer to Shintaro, lowering her voice. “Are you that worried about Enomoto?”

He didn’t move, keeping his gaze lowered.

“I’ll call her, at least. That’s my duty, or something. Besides, it’s been four years. Whatever grudge she might have had, I’m sure she’s grown out—”

“It was never a grudge. Actually, she…” but he trailed off, seemingly not willing to talk about it, and abruptly shifted topics instead. “It’s not just her. Haruka’s power… was what made him like that, you know? If he uses it again…”

He didn’t need to finish the thought. For someone who complained a lot, Takane was surprising guarded about her feelings. Tsubomi had only a vague idea of what their relationship had been like before the two of them came into possession of their snakes, but re-forging it had been a difficult process for Takane, no matter how much she pretended in front of the rest of them that it hadn’t hurt. She didn’t deserve to have to do that a second time.

Shuuya made his way back over to the two of them, and the topic dropped entirely. “She said thirty or forty minutes. Want to check out the roof quickly?”

“You mean the amusement park? No, thanks.”

“Then we can call Ene!”

“—The amusement park sounds great, let’s go.”

Tsubomi gave Shuuya a light glare as Shintaro quickly made his way back to the elevator. “Honestly, how long are you going to keep doing that to him?”

“Until I find something worse than Ene, of course.”

Tsubomi found herself wishing she could see through Shuuya’s mask to know just what sort of expression he was making at the moment. “I can only hope Enomoto has grown up more than you. It’s been six years and you still resent him?”

Shuuya’s smile didn’t change, but she managed to catch a very slight movement backwards from him. Underneath the mask, she knew he was making a very different expression than what he’d had a second ago. But even Tsubomi didn’t know what sort of face it was. She’d already turned and taken a few steps towards Shintaro before realizing that her remark might possibly have cut far deeper than she’d intended. It was so stupidly easy to hurt Shuuya when he insisted on pretending nothing hurt at all.

“Kisaragi!” Luckily, she managed to get to him before the elevator had arrived. “Sorry, but I’m going to call Enomoto right now.”

His expression was instant terror.

“Look, I’m not going to let Kano jerk you around like that. If you’re that worried, turn off your phone.”

“H-hey, it’s not just my phone! My laptop at home… well, I don’t know if she can wake it up when it’s asleep, but I didn’t turn that off or anything! I didn’t realize I was going to be out! If she can wake it up, there’s nothing I can do to protect anything…!”

“She’s going to need to find out. We might as well get this over with so Shuuya can stop blackmailing you.”

“I’d rather be blackmailed! I’d rather be blackmailed than be put back into that position!”

“Hey, lower your voice!” Was this guy really two years older than her? “I’m not concealing us or anything—look, what if she discovers on her own? Then you won’t even have any warning.”

It seemed to have been something Shintaro hadn’t even considered, and he went white as a sheet.

“… Come on, let’s just go call her. Shuuya, you come too.”

“K—” She punched him before even the first syllable was out of his mouth.

Together, the three of them retreated to an out of the way corner where a few others were hanging around. Shintaro watched with dread as Tsubomi scrolled through her contacts, selected one, and raised the phone to her ear.

It rang for long enough that it almost seemed like it would go to voicemail when a grouchy voice suddenly responded. “This had better be important…” At the muffled sound of the voice in the speaker from off to the side of the phone, Shintaro seemed about ready to wet himself.

“I wouldn’t have called otherwise. Enomoto, if you have to go somewhere private before answering, that’s alright. Ah… First off, I suppose, are you in a place with a WiFi signal?”

“Huh? What kind of a question is that? I am, but I don’t see—”

Takane’s voice abruptly cut off with a clattering sound. Soon, Haruka’s muffled voice could be heard shouting something indistinct on the other end. A few seconds later, Takane’s voice was barely audible again, also shouting, before everything went quiet.

The voice that suddenly came out of the phone was at speaker level, and Tsubomi quickly jerked it from her ear. “There better be a _very_ good explanation for this, and I want it _now_.”

Sure enough, there on the screen was a familiar blue haired and blue clad avatar, arms crossed as she glared up at Tsubomi and Shuuya. For his part, Shintaro had retreated to the wall, trying his best to stay out of view.

“Ah, Ene, you’re here already! It’s regrettable, but we don’t have a good explanation to give you. We’re still trying to figure things out ourselves, you see!”

She glared up at Shuuya and puffed out her cheeks for good measure. “You could have at least said something less cryptic before I gave Haruka a heart attack! Geeze.”

“Sorry,” Tsubomi apologized. “I didn’t think you’d try so soon, and I didn’t know who might be listening. We’re at the mall ourselves, so we can’t really talk freely.”

“Eh? Commander, aren’t you the one who can do something about that?”

“Uh, well, yes, but right now we’re waiting for a reservation at a restaurant, so we can’t go disappearing…”

“Aah, the two of you? This isn’t anything like a date, is it?” She grinned.

Tsubomi made a disgusted face in return. Shuuya just laughed. “No, no, no dates here! We’re siblings you know, and besides, Older Kisaragi is here too!”

Shintaro seemed torn between wanting to murder Shuuya and wanting to flee. But Tsubomi pointed the front camera in his direction, and his chance at the latter vanished.

“Eeeh? Why, Master, I didn’t see you over there!” It seemed Tsubomi’s phone’s volume had been turned up again to make sure Shintaro could hear. On the screen that Shintaro couldn’t see, Takane grinned. And a moment later, took on a curious look. “Huh. His phone is off.”

“You tried to get in already?!”

“Of course! It wouldn’t be much like old times if I didn’t stay with you, now would it?”

His cover blown, Shintaro slowly made his way back to the pair so at least Takane wouldn’t need to shout across the hallway. “It doesn’t _need_ to be like old times… ugh.”

“At least, I would have thought you wouldn’t be calling him ‘Master’ anymore.”

“You know, I was thinking I wouldn’t, but Master had already forced me to renew the contract, and since it’s a bit of a habit, I don’t really see the harm in it.”

“Hey, I didn’t force you—! And on top of that, it’s weird for someone to be calling me Master, especially a girl at this age. And—third, if your ability is back, then Haruka’s is probably…”

At the mention, Takane’s face fell immediately. “You think so…? Yeah, yeah, I guess it would be. Well, as long as he doesn’t use it, it should be alright, shouldn’t it? He won’t… forget again. Absolutely not.” She shook her head, as if trying to convince herself, or dispel her own fears.

“U-um… hello?” Speaking of Haruka, all four of them startled as another voice came out of the phone.

Takane put her head in her hands for a moment, then clenched her fists. “Hey, Haruka! I said I’d be right back! You’d better not have been listening in!”

“Ah, no, I just picked up the phone. Um, this is Takane’s Ene character, isn’t it? And, the person who called Takane…”

“Tsubomi Kido. It’s been a while, though it’s alright if you don’t remember me.”

“Oh, it’s Commander! I remember your voice. That explains why your name seemed familiar.”

“Master is here, too! And that Kano brat.”

“Ah, calling me a brat when I’m already an adult…”

“Can it, brat.” The glare Takane fixed Shuuya with was even more piercing than what Tsubomi thought of as her usual anger. Unsurprisingly, Shuuya’s smile didn’t waver, but he didn’t reply to her either. “Anyway, Haruka, I said it was fine! I’ll come back when I’m done talking with these guys, so you can go back to practicing.”

“But you sound like you’re having fun! Besides, I was a member of the Mekakushi Dan, too! Isn’t that what this is about?” He sounded so _happy_ about it.

But in contrast to his sentiment, Takane’s gaze lowered, and she fidgeted a little. Finally she seemed to decide to handle her reaction as anger, puffing her cheeks and raising her voice again. “Augh, you know what? Fine! We’ll continue this later! Commander, you said you’re about to have lunch, right?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.”

“Okay, then we have time! Haruka, I’m coming back now. See you!” She waved to the three of them, then suddenly disappeared from Tsubomi’s phone right as the call disconnected.

A moment of silence passed, then Shintaro crumpled to his knees. “Haruka, you’re a lifesaver…”


	3. 偽ソロ [Nise Solo] – Imitation Solo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates will be biweekly from this point on.

Momo Kisaragi, 20 years old. Occupation: idol. It wasn’t correct to say that her adulthood was what had caused her to be washed up, like so many idols before her. No, it would be more reasonable to think that she’d been washed up for about four years now.

Though, actually calling her washed up would be cruel to all the other girls who had struggled in this industry without any strange power to help them out. Her widespread popularity had fallen off a few months after the loss of her ability, but she continued to maintain a core of dedicated fans through it all. She suspected a good deal of it had to do with the fact that some of her first songs were still played, original recordings and all. Though she no longer had the power to draw attention as she had before, the magic or whatever that had permeated her earlier works still remained strong even after all these years.

Still, she had reached the age of twenty. Suddenly all the warnings and cautions about the company she kept with boys in the public eye had completely turned around. An idol who wasn’t an adult should be pure, for the sake of her fans. But an idol who had become an adult should be seeking marriage. That was how things went, and her manager even seemed to be going so far as to try to set her up with different men in her industry. Perhaps she wanted a wash-up like her out of her hair, and once Momo was married, the chances of her remaining popular were exceedingly slim and she’d have a good excuse to finally let her go. Momo had bought herself a good deal of time already, saying that she didn’t feel like an adult without a proper Coming of Age Day, and that excuse could hold for another five months. But the pressure to find someone to be her husband remained, sitting on her like a heavy weight.

What sort of girl wanted to be married off at age twenty nowadays, anyway?

Maybe she should have lied and said the extra ticket she was trying to sneak was for her boyfriend, she thought, but her manager already knew so now it was too late. It wasn’t often that she missed Shintaro, but they hadn’t seen each other since April, and then New Years, and then last summer before that. Not that she’d seen him much when he was holed up in his room but at least she always knew he was _there_. Now that he was off at university, he was never around, and with her out of school, she was an idol full-time and could go on tour properly. It made it difficult to see him.

Strangely enough, her popularity hadn’t waned right away. Her manager, who until that point had only made oblique comments that left Momo wondering if she’d actually realized that something was strange with her, had of course commented after her first performance. Of course. Of course she’d known all along; it was exactly why Momo had been scouted and why almost all promotional images of her were taken at her concerts. Without any control over her ability, she couldn’t reliably use it, so the safest course of action was to put her in front of a crowd and let it start all on its own. Momo had felt a little foolish for ever thinking it was the sort of thing she could keep secret from someone like her. It really had been abnormal after all.

But as long as her original recordings were still on the radios and her original images were still in the commercials, the company could maintain her popularity for a little longer. Slowly, the comments began to roll in, though. People noticed that she didn’t draw the crowd’s attention in person the way she’d previously done, or could on the radio. Not that most people could articulate it so exactly, but there was something noticeably different after all. A few rumors had circulated that, of all things, she had gotten pregnant. As if it were any of their business what she did, though she had known that her entire life would become the subject of scrutiny when she took this job. But when time proved that such rumors were false, all sorts of different explanations began to fly around.

Some got a little closer to the truth than Momo was comfortable with, but none of them were completely right. Who but the children who had had it in their own eyes would believe such a fantastic tale about dying and coming back, a tale of snakes and time manipulation and suffering? At one point, when her manager had been particularly disappointed, she had tried to explain. But even knowing her strangeness, accepting the fact that she had once died was something she couldn’t do, and the source of her power was equally beyond her comprehension. In the end, all the conversation had resulted in was an admission that her ability was absolutely, certainly gone.

But despite all that, she still wasn’t doing too badly. They began to play old recordings of her earlier songs that she had to lip-synch to for her opening number and her finale at every concert, and none of her newer songs were remotely as popular as her older ones. But she still had fans. Her concerts continued to be well-attended, though in the larger venues she couldn’t quite fill all the seats. When she was seventeen, her contract was up for renewal, and much to her surprise, the company chose to keep her in the end.

“Ah, nooo, they gave me the one that shrunk today!”

The early evening found Momo in her changing room, trying to squeeze into the dress that hugged a bit too tight in her chest and chafed slightly in her underarms. She had three or four different makes of the same outfit, and though she’d complained about this particular one before, her manager had done nothing to fix it. Unhappily she squeezed into it and cinched the wide belt around her waist. That squeezed, too, but she wasn’t allowed to complain about it. Any time she did, her manager would go off on her about needing to lose more weight.

She pulled her socks on and without even grabbing her shoes, padded over to the door and knocked. “Okay, I’m ready for makeup…”

The door swung open before she could so much as turn around, and suddenly hands were urging her into the chair in front of the mirror. It wasn’t unexpected but Momo startled anyway, and before she could really get her bearings there were already hands in her hair, starting to deftly weave a braid as another set began padding various makeups onto her face. Any time she had tried to do the makeup herself, back in her first few years, her manager would complain about the job she did, so by now it was just expected that someone else would do it for her. All she had to do was sit obediently with her eyes closed and let them work.

“So we’ve scheduled a last-minute set change,” her manager began without preamble, having presumably waited only as long as she had to for her to finish changing. “We’re still going with your current standard set, but we have to swap tracks three and five due to the commercial placement for tonight’s broadcast. This means you’ll move offstage after the end of your third song, so keep in mind you won’t have your normal break in the middle.”

“Right, right, got it.”

“Repeat it back to me, Momo.”

She sighed. “Normal set, swapping three and five, so my first break is after song three, not five.” She closed her mouth again quickly as some powder found its way in.

“Good. Now then, the fifth backstage pass holder didn’t show up, so there’s only four today. You have twenty minutes with them.”

“Eh? Only twenty today?”

Her manager groaned. “Momo, that’s _already_ longer than we wanted to give them.”

“Eheh…” She gave a little laugh, but then one of the makeup assistants put a hand on her head to steady her as they started in on eyeliner. Momo made a soft upset noise and pouted, but like the good girl she’d become accustomed to being for them, held still and let them work.

Besides, with two people, the work went quickly. Every so often she’d get a new makeup person and it would slow, but she didn’t have complicated makeup so in the end they usually caught on to her look quickly.

That look hadn’t changed in four years, though if she compared herself to old pictures she thought her face had a slightly more mature shape now. In any case, the company continued to use promotional material from years ago (her more dedicated fans realized it really quickly, and any time something new came out there was immediate comparison between it and existing footage on the message boards) though it seemed the average person hadn’t caught on even after this long, so she wasn’t allowed anything but the most subtle differences. One particularly egregious attempt had been to synch up footage from an old concert with one of her newer songs; the clip had actually worked for about six of the seven seconds they’d made, so they kept it even though there was an awkward moment in the middle where her lip motions were visibly wrong.

The first thing she was going to do once she stopped being an idol, she had long since decided, was get a haircut.

Actually, she would have much preferred letting her hair grow out longer, to give her a cooler look of the sort that Tsubomi had. But growing out hair took time, and what she desired was a drastic change to separate herself from the person who was trapped imitating her own image of four years ago. So she’d decided she’d cut her hair short, then let it grow out again, and therefore get both the sudden change and the eventual style she wanted.

Ah, but all that was for when she stopped being an idol, and at this point, that could still be a year off or even longer. But her last contract renewal had been a short-term one, only a year, with the understanding that as she lived her first year of adulthood she would decide on the path she wanted to follow longer term. She had passed the age where keeping her was a low risk; girls were easy to market, but women were harder.

She was so caught up in her thoughts that it took her manager standing over her calling her name in a stern voice for her to realize that her makeup had been completed. She startled and hopped out of the chair, already looking around for her shoes as she automatically gave her usual excuse for spacing out. “Sorry! I was making sure I remembered all my routines.”

The expression on her face said that she wasn’t buying it any more than she had the last five times Momo had used the same excuse. But she found her shoes and leaned down to put them on, so her manager let it drop and started to move out of her dressing room. One of the makeup assistants, the more senior one, stuck around, continuing to watch her for a moment longer. It was true that she’d occasionally smudged her makeup at the last moment, but she didn’t need to be looked at like that…!

She stood upright and shifted a little in the shoes to make sure they were on securely, and finally the assistant’s suspicious look disappeared. Satisfied, Momo started following them out, but a flash of red caught her eye as she passed by the mirror, and she startled and turned.

“Ah! My bow!”

Sure enough, the red bow in her hair had started to slip a little, and she quickly re-tied it. That much, at least, she could do herself. She turned back to her manager and the makeup assistant to see that both of them had turned to stare at her, so she gave a soft, awkward laugh.

“Is anything else falling off?”

“… No.” With something as abrupt as that, her manager turned away and continued leaving, though once again the assistant lingered a few seconds before following. Momo followed as well, trying not to move her arms too much to avoid chafing before the concert had even begun.

 

* * *

 

It was always a pleasant surprise when the fans she was meeting with weren’t entirely middle-aged men, though it was almost with certainty that she could expect at least one. This time, of the four, only two looked old enough to possibly be her parent. The third person was a young man, looking about her age if a little younger, who had flushed the moment she had walked into the room where they were waiting. Ah, so he either had a crush on her, or he was the sort of person who would become like the other two as he got older. Hopefully, the former. As for the fourth person…

“Ah, Hiyori! It’s been so long!”

She greeted her friend with a smile, but upon spotting her manager’s dirty look, a shiver went up her spine. Ah, right. She was always getting chastised for treating fans with different amounts of attention when she’d met them. It was something she’d been particularly bad at when she’d started, but since then she’d managed to become better. The older men got less uncomfortable to be around the more time she spent as an idol, though she wouldn’t really say it got less creepy.

But, perhaps the damage had already been done, as her friend beamed back at her.

“It has, hasn’t it? I was really happy that I got tickets to the concert, and then I won the raffle prize as well! My luck is super amazing!”

“Ah, yeah, that’s great…!” Momo could already feel the sweat beginning to form as her manager’s expression remained unwavering. Okay, she just had to salvage this as much as possible, right…?!

Thinking that, she turned to the other three, who seemed to be various levels of jealous at Hiyori and enraptured with Momo’s presence, to maybe even the point that one of the guys hadn’t even noticed she’d already addressed someone else in the room.

“U-um, well, thank you very much for coming to my concert! I’m Momo Kisaragi. It’s so wonderful to meet all of yo—eh?!”

Unexpectedly, the man about her age jumped to his feet and immediately set himself to holding a deep bow. “I’m Tadashi Ishiyama! I have been a fan of yours since the beginning and am deeply honored by your presence!”

Though he’d looked to be about her age, with such a formal way of speaking and acting, Momo thought she might reconsidered her earlier assessment. Or perhaps this was just his response to her, in which case, it would be somewhat depressing that she could make someone seem to age a decade or more in behavior patterns. “A… ah, it’s alright, you don’t have to—”

“Ryo Kawada!” Not to be outdone, one of the older men shouted his own name while jumping to his feet and also bowed deeply and held it. “If you would just remember tomorrow that we spoke today, I would be extremely grateful!”

Oh, no, now both of them were doing it. Momo looked back and forth between the two, at a loss for words, before her gaze slowly, with more dread than she knew how to hide, drifted to the third man. Ah, but maybe he was a kindred spirit in this situation. He seemed to be just as flabbergasted at the reactions as she was, and eventually gave her a hesitant glance, as if asking if he was expected to follow suit. Hopefully her expression was enough of an answer to keep him from overreacting like the others.

Those two hadn’t yet stopped bowing.

“Um, I’m Miyoshi. Keisuke Miyoshi. It’s nice to meet you.” Thankfully, his bow was a more normal one, of an expected depth and length that Momo found herself matching out of habit. Maybe, despite her putting her hopes on the youngest man, this one was in fact the most reasonable of the three… ah, how depressing it was that she sometimes found herself thinking things like that.

“Hiyori Asahina, nice to meet you!” Unexpectedly, Hiyori followed suit, though she also kept to a reasonable bow, and after a moment, looked up, a bit sheepishly. Spotting Momo’s confused look, she awkwardly tried to explain herself. “Ah, I thought it might be weird if I didn’t do it too, since we’re all…”

Those two still hadn’t stopped bowing.

Maybe they were competing against each other?

In any case, this was the time when it was Momo’s job to entertain them and give them the happiness they’d earned by obtaining their special passes, so maybe just by doing that, she could draw them back upright. “Well, now that we’ve all met each other, did anyone bring anything to be signed? Ah, or do you have any questions for me?”

That seemed to do the trick, as both men looked up at her in unison. Their gazes seemed to hold for just a bit longer than was comfortable, but then suddenly they both went for their bags. The third did, as well, but Hiyori didn’t seem to have anything with her. Well, it wasn’t too unsurprising. With the way they were friends, if Hiyori came to have a desire for Momo’s signature on something of hers, she could just ask at any point. They hadn’t seen each other in a while, yes, but that was more for lack of any attempt than an inability.

“Please sign this on the picture directly!”

The first to produce something was the second man, pulling from his bag a square picture of her mounted on a board. Momo immediately recognized it as a promotional item they had sold for about a year which hadn’t been produced for two years or so. Her own smiling face, eyes a bright red, beamed up at her, and she felt the very slight pull of her own power drawing her gaze in a weakened way. Certainly, this had to be the centerpiece of a larger collection, and she carefully pulled it out of the protective plastic sleeve. “Ah, I remember this picture. We haven’t sold these in years! Were you waiting all this time for the chance to have it signed?”

“Y-yes, I was!” _Nailed it_ , Momo thought to herself, though she managed to keep the proud grin to just a small quirk of her lips as the man continued. “I try to buy something new at every concert of yours I go to… ah, so I have a lot of merchandise, indeed! But that has long been my favorite! I think it just about perfectly captures your charm while still being powerful and emotional! There’s a feeling about it that just draws you in, isn’t there? It’s been the centerpiece of my collection since I purchased it at your Golden Week concert about two and a half years ago! Ever since then, I just knew that if I ever got the chance, I would give anything to have you sign it!”

It was lucky for her that he was willing to be so long-winded, since though year of practice had made her faster at her idol signature, the fact was she was still rather slow at it. But the man’ s story had given her more than enough time to draw the whole thing, with a little bit of extra to let her put it back in the sleeve and return it to him. It also gave her an excuse not to ask for his name to sign. Her penmanship continued to be terrible. “Ah, here you go! It makes me happy that it means so much to you! I hope you continue to cherish it for many more years!” Lines she had learned as an idol.

She handed it back to him with a bow. Momo expected him to take it out of her hands, but after several seconds, she felt no sense of someone else grabbing the item, and peeked up to see what was happening. In fact, the man was standing there awestruck, as if unable to reconcile the fact that he had finally managed to get her signature on his most prized possession. Well, hopefully it wasn’t something like she’d made a terrible job of it. Her manager seemed to have the same worry and moved to subtly peek over the man’s shoulder to see what sort of a job she did, and she felt an internal sigh of relief as she gave a small shrug. At least, she hadn’t found too much fault with it, so probably this was just the result of over exuberance.

A few more seconds passed, and Momo wondered what she was expected to do in this sort of situation. But then it seemed to solve itself, as finally, with shaking hands, the man reached out to accept it back. Momo tried not to look too relieved, though she was sure that it had to have shown up on her face at least a little. She had little time to recover as the younger man, as if not to be outdone, quickly shoved a t-shirt in her direction. “On the front, please!”

She took the t-shirt, and immediately the smell of body odor hit her. At least, she thought to herself, it wasn’t as overwhelming as some fans she had encountered, but there was no mistaking that either this shirt wasn’t washed enough or the man who owned it had worn it many times. Quite possibly, it was both.

Ah, right, she had to sign it, though. Momo unfolded it and was greeted with, unsurprisingly, her own face staring up at her, with some cheesy looking graphics and text surrounding the image. It was a more recent image, with no red eyes to be seen, but despite that her energetic demeanor seemed to still have its own appeal. Right, even without her ability, she was still an idol after all. It was possible to do this job without such things, if much less easy. Though if she had to guess, the image was still several years old.

“Oh, you’ve already shown this so much love! Well, I hope I can make it even more precious for you!”

It was less smooth than her previous remark, but as she set about to signing the shirt, on the edge, in a convenient place among the graphics, the owner of said shirt started to go on anyway. “I… yes! I had an older shirt that I wore so much that it fell apart at the seams, but now that you’re signing this one, I will keep it even when it falls apart! I would put it on any time I listened to your music. I have listened to your albums so many times that some of them have four digit play counts on my music player. Sometimes I will wear it underneath my shirt at work. Feeling close to you like that will often get me through the day!”

_“Just so you know, this marker is permanent, so you can still wash the shirt!”_

… No good, she absolutely couldn’t say something like that. Momo simply finished signing, and putting on her best smile, handed back the shirt, keeping her thoughts about the smell to herself and simply hoping that he’d practice reasonable hygiene. “Here you go! Please continue to remember me as you cherish this item!”

This time, when she gave it back with another bow, the man took it immediately. With that, she turned to the third.

“And how about you?”

He hesitated, then produced a CD case. It was one of her more recent albums, and he tentatively held it out. “I don’t have any impressive story or anything, but I became a fan about a year ago, and this album was what caught my attention.”

Momo shook her head and took it with a smile. “No, that’s wonderful! Old or new doesn’t matter. As long as you think of yourself as a fan, it makes me really happy.” Ah, where did she pick up all these cheesy lines? But his expression lit up at that, and somehow she felt that maybe the stupid lines actually meant something to him. Albums were something that she’d been taught to sign properly, so she knew what to do.

This time, he didn’t seem to want to spill his life’s story to her as she pulled the cover out, so she decided to ask some question to at least get him talking while she worked. It was just human nature to like talking about yourself, more or less. That, and she _really_ didn’t like when they got the chance to ask her to sign their names.

“Did you hear one of my songs on the radio, perhaps?”

“No. Ah, though actually I had, I think, and I thought it was nice, but it was actually my daughter who became a fan first. This was the album that I bought her for her twelfth birthday because she seemed to want it so much. Actually, I messed up and it wasn’t the one she’d wanted, but after listening to it, she decided she liked this one better anyway. Though I’m still not sure if she said that just to make me feel better…” He trailed off with a soft laugh, though his voice took on a slightly sadder edge as he continued speaking. “We were looking forward to going to this concert together, but, well, there was an accident. She’s alright, but she can’t leave the hospital for a while. She yelled at me a lot when I thought about not going. You know how young girls can be… she wanted me to go without her, since we had won these passes. Even though she was the one who had been so excited to meet you…”

Momo’s drawing slowed as she listened to the story, and she felt a sharp tightness in her chest. A family outing, father and daughter… Even with her hatred for names, Momo couldn’t help but ask. “Is it alright if I address this to her? What’s her name?”

“Oh, o-of course. It’s Kirie. Written with paulownia and the ‘picture’ character in ukiyo-e.”

Crap. Momo froze for two seconds, not even daring to glance her manager’s way.

“Is… hiragana alright?”

He let out another soft laugh. “Hiragana is just fine.”

Disaster averted.

Momo finished her signature and handed the album back. At the very least, the story had been touching enough that she’d hope the other two men wouldn’t use her addressing her signature to someone as an excuse to demand she do the same for them. (Well, even if they did, there was at least a precedent for her using hiragana.)

“Ah, and—“

“I didn’t bring anything!” Hiyori declared happily before Momo could even finish turning towards her to ask. In a way, it was sort of a relief, but there was no way it didn’t also stir up some jealousy in the other three. But it was her job to make the best of a situation she’d already messed up.

“In that case, does anyone have any questions? Or anything they’d like to know? I’ll do my best to answer what I can!”

The youngest man seemed to be holding himself back. _He’s probably wondering if I have a secret boyfriend_ , she thought to herself, despite having no real basis for the suspicion beyond her own experience with people who acted like that around her. _Please don’t actually ask…_

“Do you, uh, have a boyfriend?”

_Ugh, he asked._

“Eheh,” she gave a small laugh, trying to hide her discomfort at the question. Experience had long taught her that her manager wouldn’t bail her out here. “Well, my job makes me really busy all the time, so I haven’t had enough free time to hold a relationship yet.” Which was certainly true a year ago, but her manager had been cutting her some slack recently for that express purpose… if the totally-not-dates she set her up on counted as free time.

“How much time does being an idol take up?” Thank you, man number two, for being the sane one here helping her out…

“Why did you stop wearing contacts at your concert?”

It took Momo half a second to process the other question, and suddenly she felt the smile freeze on her face as a cold chill went down her spine. Of course, she had an answer ready for it. Her manager had made sure of it. But that didn’t make her feel any more prepared for it. She tried to take a deep breath, but her throat felt dry, and she nearly coughed.

“A-ah…”

The voice that spoke up, though, was Hiyori’s. Momo all but jumped when she heard it, gaze snapping to her friend. Her gaze was locked on the floor, eyes hidden beneath her bangs as she shivered, mouth hanging open slightly.

That’s right. Momo wasn’t the only one who had suffered thanks to the red eyes. In that unending world, how long had Hiyori suffered? How long had that day felt to her in a place where time never moved forwards?

“Sorry to cut this off, but we’re out of time,” her manager interrupted with all the grace of someone used to heading off looming PR disasters. “Momo has to finish getting ready now, so if you’ll go with security, they’ll let you back into the audience at your assigned ticket locations.”

The three men proceeded to file out as prompted, thanking her and muttering things to themselves that Momo immediately forgot. She didn’t move. Hiyori didn’t move.

“Miss? I’m going to have to ask you return to the audience…” She put a gentle hand on Hiyori’s shoulder, but Hiyori still reacted to it with a jump. Before either of them could say anything, Hiyori bolted from the room.

“Hiyori—?!”

“Security!” her manager shouted, and soon Momo heard the sound of one of the people outside running off, presumably to chase down Hiyori.

Momo gave an unsteady sigh, gaze dropping to the floor. “… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freeze up like that…”

“That girl… was she like you?”

“Ah, um, sort of. I mean, well, she was involved, so…”

“Well, it was just an unfortunately timed question. They didn’t have much longer anyway, so cutting them off a few minutes early isn’t too bad. You need to be backstage in a little over ten minutes, so go calm down if you need it.”

Sometimes, despite not getting it at all, her manager really did seem to understand.

 

* * *

 

When she got back to the green room, she fished her cell phone out of her bag and called her brother. For a moment, she thought he’d picked up almost immediately, but the voice on the other end, unexpectedly, wasn’t his. “We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is currently unavailable…”

Did his phone run out of battery? She wouldn’t have expected such a thing, since he’d said he was planning on staying at home the whole time… ah, but maybe he got dragged out by someone? Though hard to believe, the events of four years ago proved that such a thing wasn’t impossible, so she waited until the tone for leaving a message sounded.

“Hey, big brother! Are you out and about? If you’re not, you should turn on the TV and watch my concert! Hiyori is here as well, so if the two of you are watching, I know I’ll do my best! Okay! See you!”

She hung up just as the door opened.

“To the stage, Momo! You’re on in five.”

 

* * *

 

The first song went by quickly. It was the same routine as always, the same motions, the same lip-synch. If she were honest with herself, there was a part of her that had come to hate that song. It was the very representation of the company trying to cling to the power she used to have. But if she let herself acknowledge that those were her true feelings, she knew she really _would_ come to hate the song which had been one of her favorites for a long time. So she pretended it wasn’t that bad. She pretended she didn’t know the real reason she still danced to it, this song from so many years ago.

But it drew the crowd in and it got them excited, before their attention inevitably waned as her set went on. So in a way, she was happy to sing it, though really there wasn’t any singing involved at all.

Song over. Stop. Thank the crowd for coming. Shout words of encouragement to pump them up, then launch straight into the second biggest hit from her newest album. This time, she was allowed to sing, and though it was more physically demanding she felt so much more energetic doing it. Mouthing the words always felt so fake, like echoes of a Momo who no longer was. This song, this routine, was the idol she had become.

_Are you watching, Hiyori?_

_Are you watching, Shintaro?_

This was the person she was in this moment.

This was the woman who had not yet given up on herself.

This was the performance she could still draw attention with.

Draw attention…

It was like a bright light turning on, perhaps, or more a flood of lights, dim in individuality but all pointed straight at her. She placed her foot wrong and stumbled a little, but it wasn’t during any lyrics, so she could recover and keep going.

_What the heck is this?_

_What the heck is all of this?!_

All of these eyes directed at her and she could see—feel?—knew they were there, that they were pointed straight at her. She forced herself to keep breathing. She forced herself to keep dancing. She focused on the lyrics, making sure that the correct words came out of her mouth, trying to block out everything else.

Her ability was back?

Her ability was most certainly back.

Momo managed to finish the song, and the cheer that erupted from the crowd was unlike any she’d heard. She found herself already gasping for breath, overwhelmed by the shock and the oppressive stares that she knew were all directed at her.

_Aah, and the next song is also tiring… ah, no, we changed them. The next one is slow. Thank goodness…_

She repositioned herself in the center of the stage for the light cues and took a deep breath. Sure enough, the sound that came through her earpiece was the slow introduction to what was normally the fifth song in her set, and she felt a bit of relief. Even with her eyes closed, the gazes of everyone around her, audience, tech, and even those in the wings backstage, pressed in on her. A slow song was just what she needed. It was probably good that the lighting was being run by computers…

She began to sing.

Though it still wasn’t any sort of control, she could sort of feel the way her power moved with her. As she went up higher, it drew the focus tighter, as she went down again, it loosened. She wasn’t sure she had the focus to try any more than that, not when she’d only just realized she had it again, but for now she was content to let it ebb and flow with the song.

Momo reached the second chorus, and the lights on her that were supposed to be white instead shifted into a strong blue. She glanced upwards quickly, but what her gaze fell upon made her do a double-take. The entire main lighting rig looked off balance. A second later, an impossibly loud _CRACK_ echoed from the ceiling, and the rig began to move.

It was swinging downwards.

Straight towards her.

 

* * *

 

_“Ah, and here I’d waited for most of a day to see how you’d react. Even though I ‘blinked’ for so long, all of you seem to have barely moved. Have any of you even noticed ‘it’ at all? I’d forgotten how boring you are. Well, if that’s what it would be like, I’ll just accelerate things.”_

 

* * *

 

With something like that and a resounding crash, the metal structure hit the stage.


	4. レッドアイ面通し [Red Eye Mentooshi] – Red Eye Lineup

Shuuya Kano made it his business to understand people. His siblings, Ayano’s friends, and even the newest members of the Mekakushi Dan whom he had only met a short time ago were all targets. Or maybe, thinking of them in those terms, it wasn’t any attempt at understanding at all. It would perhaps be more accurate to say he made it his business to be able to predict them.

It was because of that that he was almost entirely certain he was going to be the only one to seriously approach Marry and ask, so he’d waited a few days until the dust had settled. He also already knew what the answer was likely to be, but he’d been surprised before.

“Hey, Marry!”

He’d waited until Kosuke was busy with his part-time job and Ayano had gone out with Tsubomi. Shuuya had also gone out, but with the express purpose of making it back before any of the others, and from the way that Marry was still reading in the living room by herself, it seemed he’d succeeded.

“Ah, welcome back, Kano!” She gave him a smile, then went back to her book, and he casually sat down on the couch next to her, trying his best to keep his grin even.

“Say, Marry, we’ve been friends for a while, right?”

She looked up again with a confused expression, but after a moment, nodded. “Um… yes. I guess so.”

“Theeen! As a friend, I’m going to ask you a big favor! Ah, but you can’t tell the others, okay? It’s a secret.” He held a finger to his lips, giving her a wink. “You understand, right?”

“Ah, um, I think I do, maybe…” She was clearly getting more flustered, though, so Shuuya decided he didn’t have the luxury of convincing her to agree to keep quiet any more than that. It was time to skip straight to the point.

“Would you give me back the snake I was keeping?”

“… Eh…?”

She was staring at him with an expression that clearly said she didn’t believe her ears. Honestly, he didn’t blame her. After all, the main focus of the Mekakushi Dan had been to discover the secrets behind their powers so they could, among a few other things, live normal lives without them. That was the goal that everyone had been on board with. Even him, ostensibly.

“It’s a strange request, isn’t it? Then, think of it this way.” He placed his spread hand in front of his nose and mouth, obscuring a good portion of his face. “Imagine one day you’re given a mask. And you’re told you should never take it off. So you wear it, day after day, on and on and on. You wear this mask for years. Some days you hate it, and some days you don’t mind, but you never, ever take it off. Suddenly, one day you find that your mask is gone.” He took his hand away. “Don’t you think that might be scary? By then you’ve forgotten what your own face is like. You were so used to nobody seeing anything, and now everyone can see everything.” He leaned a little closer, and Marry leaned back to match. “What does my face look like? What sort of expression am I making? Can everyone see exactly what I’m feeling? I haven’t had to think about those things since I was so much younger.”

And it was even the truth. He didn’t even know what sort of face he was making right now. Was he still smiling? That didn’t quite feel right in his cheeks. If not a smile, then what? What sort of expression was he making that was causing Marry’s eyes to go wide like that?

“K-Kano…” she shrunk back a little further, then suddenly shook her head. “I-I can’t! I can’t give it back to you! It’s…”

Her gaze slipped to the side as she trailed off, but Shuuya just gave an easy sigh and sat back, putting his hands behind his head. “Aah, that’s what I thought you’d say! Well! Don’t worry about it. Go ahead and forget I ever asked, too. It wasn’t that important.”

“Ah, I, um… I’m sorry… It must be really scary…”

“Hm?” He glanced her way with manufactured surprise, as if he himself had already forgotten. “That? That was just another lie.” He laughed, and she seemed taken aback at the sudden change. “Ah, did I have you convinced? Well, if it’s not possible, it doesn’t matter how convincing I am. How unfortunate!”

He knew he was smiling for sure this time, but he had no idea if it was a smile that gave him away anyway. He knew what convincing smiles looked like, and he knew what suspicious smiled looked like, but his muscles didn’t quite remember how to make one or the other.

Marry puffed out her cheeks, though, and crossed her arms, giving a soft ‘hmph!’ noise as she turned away before going back to her book and ignoring him. So probably, he had given the right smile. Ah, but which one was the right smile when he had just told the truth he didn’t want to be believed…?

* * *

 

That Marry would actually tell the others had been a genuine worry of his, but if she did, none of them said anything. He had his suspicions that at least Kosuke was told, but Kosuke of all people was still quite used to keeping information he shouldn’t know about other people to himself. As a child who couldn’t learn to stop listening fast enough, the first skill you’d pick up instead would be shutting up. People couldn’t hate you for the things you never let them know you knew. Whether or not Marry had been convinced by Shuuya’s lie, Kosuke almost certainly would have realized that it had been the truth. And like the good guy he was, he would have covered for him. That was just how it was.

He didn’t like the idea of Kosuke knowing that he’d wanted his ability back, but even if Marry had given it back to him, not even Shuuya would be able to keep such a thing a secret forever. Either way, Kosuke learning would have been inevitable. Hopefully he was only a little disgusted at Shuuya for it.

* * *

 

It was difficult for him. Exceedingly difficult. Back when he had first gotten his ability, he had locked himself in the bathroom for hours, practicing with his different masks. Now that he had lost those masks, he once again locked himself in the bathroom for hours, re-learning what the muscles in his face did. How long had it been since the last time he’d given someone an honest smile? Was he sure his face could actually do it, or was that just something he’d painted on with his ability? Ah, no wonder others found it so strange that he was always grinning like that; it made his cheeks hurt in almost no time at all and made holding that expression for hours seem like a nightmarish task. He was often smiling beneath the mask anyway, just in case it slipped (he stumbled, though rarely, but more often it was Tsubomi punching him) but it was not as wide a grin as he showed to others. He still knew how to lie with his words, but one emotion too strongly in the wrong direction and he watched his carefully-constructed expressions fall apart in the mirror in front of him. Was that what he looked like when he cried? It was so disgusting. How had none of the others pushed him away when they saw him making a face like that?

Shuuya had lost control and it terrified him. His muscles were too _honest_. It didn’t suit him. He didn’t like honesty. He absolutely hated it, actually. The world he could construct through lies was always less terrible than the truth of the world around him. Kosuke hated lies, but Kosuke had been hurt by lies. Shuuya never used his lies to hurt anyone. Well, almost never.

His lies were his protection. Without his lies he would have been long gone. Though, when one considered that the snake might have been one of the biggest lies, that statement became a bit too literal. He had never thought that he’d have to live without the snake again. With what that guy had said, what Ayano and her mother had discovered, Shuuya had been certain that removing his ability would cost him his life. It had been unfathomable that there would be a path that let him here, standing in front of the mirror, practicing how to look _sad_ of all things, so he knew how it felt and would be able to stop himself from doing it ever again.

He wasn’t going to give up his lies, with or without his masks.

Slowly, bit by bit, he relearned how normal people lied. How to grin when he felt like absolute shit. How to laugh when his throat wanted to tighten up and make his voice waver. How to look like his guard was down when it was anything but. His lies were how he’d protected those most important to him. His lies continued to be his defense. He was a natural liar, after all. No one knew him less than he knew himself.

* * *

 

August 14, 10AM. Shuuya had taken the earthquake as his cue to go to bed, so it was long past when sunlight had begun streaming into the room when he pulled himself awake again. It took him a few moments before he registered that he hadn’t turned on the air conditioning overnight. The air was hot, stifling, like it was trying to suffocate him. It seemed this year had another unbearably hot Obon in store.

Without even sitting up, he grabbed the remote and turned the air conditioning on. Soon, the dull sound of the fan started up, and he sighed, covering his eyes with an arm.

The sunlight was far too bright for his liking. He didn’t deserve light as brilliant as that.

Actually, it would be nice if the sunlight could go away for a while.

He continued to lie in bed, and eventually the air around him cooled. Finally the fan turned off automatically, and he peeked past his arm.

Still too bright.

With a soft huff he sat up and glanced towards the calendar. Tomorrow had a little red sticky note on it, blank except for its color. Nothing more to signify the date that changed his life during several different years. Maybe that was fine. It would be four years since the last time such a thing had happened. Perhaps letting it pass unnoticed would be the best kindness that could be done.

Shuuya was about to lie back again and let lethargy take over when his stomach raised protest, letting out a quiet but angry noise to remind him that he hadn’t eaten in nearly twelve hours. Well, the normal stores were open now, so probably he could go buy some more supplies. He wasn’t in the habit of keeping his refrigerator stocked with more than what he needed to get him through the quick meals he sometimes had, after a long evening’s worth of work that more often than not recently seemed to stretch well into the night.

Last night he’d found some of his food had gone bad, and he’d finished eating the rest. So probably it was time to buy more. He could even go to a restaurant while he was out.

Out of bed and into the bathroom. The same routine as usual, checking for new bruises or scrapes that he no longer had the power to hide. He didn’t care nearly so much about possibly getting roughed up back when he could imagine the injuries away, but that was another thing he’d gotten used to all over again. Hide or excuse the marks. Ah, the ‘I was moving a heavy box and my grip slipped’ on his right shoulder from about a week ago was finally gone. Luckily, it seemed yesterday hadn’t given him any new tales to spin, but the ‘I jumped out of the way of a bike and tripped on the pavement’ on the back of his neck from a few days ago was still…

Still…?

Shuuya slowly rubbed fingers over the back of his neck, and though he could feel the roughness from the scabbed skin under his fingertips, in the mirror, there was nothing. No brown bumps. No redness. Just his normal, smooth skin. He leaned in closer, trying to get a better look despite the angle. But no matter how closely he looked, he couldn’t see any evidence of the injury beneath his fingertips.

He pressed down sharply.

The pain shot through him in a harsh spike up his neck, and he winced a little. Suddenly, beneath his fingers, the expected scabs appeared as if they’d been there all along.

“… No way…” Shuuya let up, and the scabs remained.

He narrowed his eyes, and a moment later the injuries were gone from the mirror once again. In their place was a distinctive red scarf, and above it, staring at him intently from the surface in front of him was the familiar fifteen-year-old face of a girl who hadn’t been fifteen for a long time.

“No way…!” It came out in her voice, in that voice he’d spent so long learning to imitate exactly. As he stared at her, he felt something welling up inside of him. It was a tight heat, growing and churning and building until it felt like he was going to burst open. Was it excitement? Was it fear? His face twisted into a sneer. Shuuya found himself laughing, a laugh that refused to echo off the walls, leaving just the sound of it resounding within his own body to let him know that it existed at all. Ayano stared back at him, her image almost frozen in place, as if she were only helpless to watch as he _laughed_ to himself.

Everything that he wanted and hated had come back to him. He’d never call himself a good person, even after four years without his ability, but now he was back to being a _monster_.

Only a monster would choose to hide themselves in their own skin, after all.

“Aah, what kind of wonderful and terrible story is this, I wonder?”

Faces cycled past his eyes in the mirror in front of him. His siblings, the friends of his sister who now knew him for him, the rest of those who had formed the Mekakushi Dan, _Mother_ , the Tateyama adults… and back to his own face, staring with its innocently suspicious grin. The grin he had carefully crafted to be just too strange to be believable.

The grin that wanted to be saved from itself.

Well, a lot of good it had done him. He hadn’t been saved. He hadn’t been saved at all. He’d just had his defenses taken away, only to be left with a gaping hole and all of his fear and confusion still intact. Even without his ability, he never figured out who ‘Shuuya Kano’ really was. He’d just learned a new way to lie about it to the world around him.

Aah, it really was the worst that his ability had come back. But if that was true, why could he still feel the sneer on his face beneath the mask?

“Because you’re a monster,” his reflection answered him.

* * *

 

“Wh-whoa!” Tsubomi’s outburst had both Shuuya and Shintaro immediately turning her way, but she seemed to be already preoccupied with pulling her phone out of her pocket. Once it was out, the sound of it buzzing made it obvious why she’d startled. She looked at it in confusion, and upon catching a good view of the screen, her expression softened. “Enomo… Ene?”

Shuuya moved closer, and sure enough, Takane was sitting there in front of the screen before them. But she wasn’t her usual cheerful self. Rather, Takane hand her hands over her mouth, shoulders shaking as if they were the cause of the device’s vibration.

She seemed to be crying.

“Ah, what’s this?”

Behind her, she’d pulled up an article on Tsubomi’s phone, and all three of them leaned in to get a closer look. One by one, they froze as they processed the headline.

“BREAKING NEWS: Idol Momo Kisaragi’s Condition Currently Unknown Following Fatal Concert Incident”

“Wha… what the _hell_ is this?!” Shintaro nearly grabbed the phone out of Tsubomi’s hand and began scrolling through the article. “Lighting fixture… hit the stage… no official statements yet… hospital… ‘multiple attendees already declared dead’?! What the _hell_ is all this?!”

“Looks like it happened about half an hour ago…” Takane spoke with a voice that was right on the edge of breaking. “They were broadcasting live, so I was able to find the footage, a-and…”

She didn’t make it farther than that, and the vibrations of the phone increased as she continued to cry.

“Ene… They said they’re not sure, so it’s not like they know she’s d-d…” Tsubomi swallowed thickly and looked away from the phone.

“Well, that concert was in this area, right?” Shintaro and Tsubomi both turned to Shuuya, who for once wasn’t wearing a grin on his face. “In that case, can’t Older Kisaragi go see her to find out how she’s doing? You’re her older brother, after all.”

Shintaro’s gaze dropped to the ground, before he slowly handed the phone back to Tsubomi. “Uh… sorry. For just… grabbing it like that.”

“No, it’s… okay. Kisaragi, are you…?” but he’d already turned, starting to walk down the street, hands in his pockets, head ducked. Tsubomi glanced to Shuuya, and he to her, before the two followed. “She might still be alright, Kisaragi.”

“She’s not.” He took his hands out of his pockets and gripped his hair, pressing the heels of his palms against his forehead. “She’s _not_! All of us get our abilities back, and within a day there’s just some freak ‘accident’?! Like _hell_ it was! I’ve seen this too many times already!”

“Then that’s what you’re thinking too, right?” Shuuya put a hand on Shintaro’s shoulder and leaned in a little. “If something unfortunate happens to ‘those with red eyes’, it’s almost certainly ‘that guy’s’ fault, isn’t it?”

Shintaro didn’t move, and Shuuya felt a bit of frustration at that. This was exactly the sort of possibility for which he’d gone to Shintaro in the first place, and here he was, being the same useless guy as before. Shuuya probably should have expected this, but that didn’t make it less annoying.

“Well, do what you will.” He shrugged and stepped back again. “If this is ‘his’ fault, then even if Kisaragi is dead, you’ll probably have another chance. The rest of us will just trip over ourselves until the main character saves the day—”

Shuuya’s reflexes had improved greatly over the years, but even with that, he’d had his guard down. He could only brace himself a little against the sudden punch, and before he really processed it, he was stumbling backwards and falling to the ground.

“Don’t put all of this on me, dammit!” Shintaro looked like a bit of a wreck, tears staining his cheeks and eyes red and puffy, but Shuuya could taste the blood he knew was leaking from his lip beneath the mask he fought his pain down to get back into place, so he didn’t have much room to talk. “If it hadn’t been for all of you, I wouldn’t have saved anyone! So don’t just say it’s all on me!”

“H-hey, Kisaragi…! Calm down!”

Ah, why was Tsubomi standing up for him when she punched him more than anyone else?

“Don’t tell me to calm down! Momo’s _dead!_ She’s…!” His voice broke, and he slowly lowered himself to a crouch, as if trying to hide his face as more tears spilled forth. “I fucked up... There has to be—to be _something_ , something I could’ve…!”

“Hey, weren’t you just the one saying a second ago that it wasn’t all on you?” Tsubomi placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back a bit, causing him to tip and fall into a sitting position on the ground. A moment later she sat down too, so all three of them were in a little circle on the path. “You relied on us before, so do it again. I think Kano’s right that you should go to the hospital before jumping to any conclusions—”

She cut off as Shintaro shot a glare in her direction. “Don’t say I’m jumping to conclusions when you don’t even understand anything!”

“Master, yelling at Commander isn’t going to fix anything!” Takane glared, her face taking up most of the phone’s screen as if to make sure he could see her expression properly, but that just redirected Shintaro’s anger at her instead.

“I’ll stop yelling when you all stop dismissing me, dammit!”

“Everyone’s being so lively! But, isn’t this the sort of situation where there’s better things to do than get mad at each other?” Shuuya knew that if he didn’t stop them now, they wouldn’t get anywhere. Maybe because he had been so close to ‘that guy’, he should be the one to believe Shintaro most of all. After all, for such an existence to create a plan that was, as far as Shuuya was aware, completely reliable up until the final moment where it had been disrupted by someone holding the same sort of knowledge, there had to be some degree of predictability to everyone’s actions. So even though they had progressed passed those ‘loops’, it wouldn’t be unfathomable that such a predictability still held. Perhaps it was that sort of knowledge that seemed to fuel Shintaro’s certainty even in a ‘now’ that held no memories of itself. To Shuuya, and probably the rest of them, such a certainty was absurd. Even believing in Shintaro’s ability, there was still far too much doubt for him to be comfortable. But trusting someone else came easier than trusting himself, so he showed the rest of them a smile as he continued. “After all, if Older Kisaragi is certain enough of Kisaragi’s condition that he’s willing to discard even the possibility of her survival and instead rush into a future without it, well, there’s not much the rest of us can do, is there?”

“Don’t put it in such disgusting words…”

“But that’s only because it’s a terrible decision, you know!” He pointed straight at Shintaro. “Are you certain enough from just the situation around you that Kisaragi is dead? Because if she’s still alive and you act as if she’s not, you risk bringing about the very death you’re already lamenting as reality.”

Shintaro held Shuuya’s gaze for a couple seconds, before dropping his head and making a noise as he brought his hands up to rub his face. Shuuya wasn’t sure whether or not he saw a flash of red in those obscured eyes. “… It’s too similar. It’s too similar not to be the same. Alive or dead, things are already happening… Things are already falling apart all over again. The future we fought so hard for… has already been fucked up. Ah… dammit…”

“I… can’t say I believe that you’re right.” Tsubomi shifted a little. “But, if you’re that certain… I’m willing to put my trust in the ability that saved us. So, let’s assume…” she trailed off, glancing to the side a little with a lowered gaze before looking back up at Shintaro and continuing. “Let’s assume that Marry will fix this in her way.”

 _In her way_ , Shuuya thought, was a remarkably delicate way of saying it.

“If this is actually ‘that guy’s’ doing, that… is probably his goal, but we don’t know of any better way to save Kisaragi at the moment. What do you need us to do so this doesn’t happen again?”

Shintaro put an arm on his leg and rested his head in his hand, shoulders still shaking slightly. “I… I don’t know. How the hell would I know?”

“If you don’t try to learn anything, you’ll never learn anything! Come on, Master. Even an idiot knows that much!” Takane stared up at him from the screen and crossed her arms.

“D-don’t call me an idiot…!”

“I’m not!”

That seemed to catch his attention, and he finally lifted his head enough to look at her.

“Master is really smart… really, scary smart. But you still needed to learn things too, right? You had to start somewhere. Well, let’s start learning. You may not learn what you need to do the first time, but if you don’t learn anything, then you absolutely won’t learn what you need to do! So let’s get out there and find something for you to learn! Let’s save Little Sister!”

His gaze drifted away. “You’re all the idiots, for putting your hope in someone like me who can’t even control his ability…”

Shintaro gave a heavy sigh and pushed himself back to his feet.

“Ene. Can you get the security footage from the concert?”

Immediately her face brightened, though she wasn’t quite so cheerful as to smile. “I tried already, and it’s no good. But! If you can hook something that transmits a signal up to something in the closed circuit, I can probably get in!”

“So we have to get inside there, huh? Commander, you can sneak us in, right?”

“… Right. Easily.” She stood up. “Are you alright now, Kisaragi?”

“Hell no.” He gave a sharp laugh that died the moment it left his lips, wiping his face on his sleeve. “But what sort of older brother would I be if I just stood by and let my little sister die without doing anything?”

* * *

 

Using the bus, it only took about twenty minutes to get to the area of the concert venue, but getting close was another story. Between the emergency workers, the excited press, and the ever-growing crowd of onlookers, not even Tsubomi’s power was of much use for getting near the entrance.

Despite the late hour, the area near each major door seemed to be seas of people, even as security tried to keep them back. They were squeezed tightly enough that getting past them without bumping into a single person would be absolutely impossible. Even as far out as they were, the crowd was already impressively dense.

Luckily, they didn’t need to go in the front at all.

“If you go around the right side and most of the way down, there’s an emergency exit that goes into the backstage area!” Takane pointed for emphasis, and the three of them headed in the direction she’d indicated. They escaped the crowd from the central entrance, leaving them with some breathing room. But no sooner had they done so than the crowd from the right entrance loomed in front of them.

“Hey, how many people are gathering here, even…?”

“Well, we have to get past them, either way…”

But it was true that this amount of a crowd was certainly unusual. Well, maybe it had to do with _that_ after all. If Momo’s ability had gathered attention as would be expected, it could perhaps have been the live broadcast that compelled all these people to come here after the accident.

“Hey, it’s Momo’s older brother!”

Shintaro froze, but when he turned, he seemed to relax a little. “Oh, it’s just Hibiya…”

Well, it wasn’t that Shuuya could blame him for being startled. Having an idol for a sister probably meant that being identified as “Momo’s older brother” was about to lead to an interaction with a fan who was a little _too_ obsessed with her.

“Don’t—hey, you know, right?! About… Momo’s…” Upon second look, Hibiya’s condition seemed rather poor. He was breathing heavily, with tears streaking his face, and roughed up on top of it… What had he been doing recently to put him in such a state?

“Y… yeah. I heard. Why’re you here, though…?”

Hibiya’s eyes went wide, then his gaze dropped, and he clenched his fists in the front of his pants. “Hi… Hiyori. She was here, too. She had… tickets, to go backstage. I was trying to find her, to give her her phone, but then, I saw… I saw Momo… I saw her when… she…!”

His eyes went wide, red for an instant, before he suddenly collapsed.

“Whoa—!” Luckily, Tsubomi was close enough to grab his torso before his head hit the ground, and she lowered him slowly the rest of the way. She gave a quick sigh of relief, and when she lifted her head, her eyes were also red. “Hey, Kano. Sorry, but do you think you can watch this kid for a bit while we get inside? I don’t think we want him taken to the hospital with the rest of them… He’s probably just had a rough time of it recently.”

“Ah, you’re making me miss out on the interesting part? How disappointing! Well, if the Commander says so, I’ll do it, but I’ll want a full report afterwards, okay?”

With Tsubomi’s help, he managed to scoop Hibiya onto his back. Calling this guy a kid stung a little when Shuuya realized that Hibiya had since grown taller than him, but there was little to be done about that. They moved farther from the venue until they managed to find a bench hidden in a small side area off the main walkway, and it was there that he placed Hibiya down and sat next to him.

“Alright then! Now don’t take too long!”

He waved at the two of them as they headed back towards the building, until a tree obscured his view and they disappeared.

Shuuya looked at the boy lying next to him, and after a moment, took out his phone and flicked all the way through his contacts. From the bottom, he started going through them one at a time.

Kosuke Seto. Maybe.

Ayano Tateyama. … Maybe.

Haruka Kokonose. … Impossible.

Tsubomi Kido. Impossible.

Momo Kisaragi. Unlikely… and if she actually died, impossible.

Shintaro Kisaragi. Impossible.

Takane Enomoto. Impossible.

Hibiya Amamiya. Maybe.

There weren’t many options.

“Eeeeh…? When exactly did you get my phone number, now…?”

“Ah, Ene?” He glanced down to find that sure enough, the avatar had appeared in the corner of his phone and was now staring at the list of names. “Weren’t you going with the two of them?” He smiled and went to close his contacts list, but the girl on his screen somehow grabbed it first, holding it on the screen where it displayed her name for both of them to see.

“I was, but it’ll take them a few minutes to get inside anyway. But… hey, you even have Haruka’s number?! Creepy! I should delete these!”

“Why? Is there something wrong with having your number? I’m not like you; I can’t go tracking and invading people’s phones on a whim…” He let the edge slip through his grin.

She huffed and crossed her arms. “Well… putting that aside, where did you even get them…?”

“Why, from Commander, of course!” Not that Tsubomi had known he’d copied the numbers out of her phone.

“…” Takane seemed to accept that. “Anyway, what were you doing?”

“You know, I thought to myself, Kido and Older Kisaragi might be busy right now, while I have nothing else to do. So, what if I were to play the detective to kill some time?” He scrolled back through the contacts, and Takane turned to watch. “Just now, I was going through our list of suspects!”

“S-suspects?”

“Right. After all, ‘that guy’ is just like the rest of the snakes. He can’t exist in our world without someone to host him. So, I thought it wouldn’t be unreasonable that the condition might be something like, ‘someone who died on August 15th’, and I have a handy list of a lot of those sorts of people right here! Given that assumption and what we know, who would be the most likely host, do you think?”

Takane stared at the list for a few more seconds, before turning to him. “Who?”

“Ah, who indeed? Well, if I die before the other two get back, it’s almost certainly the kid lying next to me.” He tossed a grin towards Hibiya, still sound asleep. “He admitted himself that he was here around the time of Kisaragi’s ‘incident’, and he said that he saw it. One would expect that would be through his own ability, but it just as easily might not be, hmm?”

“Wha… then why are you alone with this kid?!”

“Ah-ah-ah, if you’re too loud, you might wake him.” Shuuya turned back to Takane. “If I’m keeping an eye on him, he can’t sneak up on us, now can he? And if I’m the only one alone with him, it comes out as very suspicious if I suddenly wind up dead, too. In this sort of situation, any move ‘that guy’ would make would at least let us know where he is. Then, Older Kisaragi would know the person he needs to pay attention to when it comes to ‘next time’.”

Takane shivered. “Okay, fine. But there’s someone else it could be, right?”

“Why, it could be anyone we haven’t seen for ourselves just yet! Though unfortunately, that means that Seto and Sis are both options. Ah, and I suppose Marry would qualify, too, wouldn’t she?”

“… Are you just ignoring Haruka to spare my feelings?” Her voice was flat as she asked it.

“Not at all! I don’t think you’re the type who is delicate enough to need such consideration. It’s more that this is happening here, right? You two aren’t anywhere near enough to this city to be suspects.”

“Ah, is that… why…? Then… about that…”

The way she fidgeted as she said it seemed like it might be a bad sign.

“Actually, we _are_ in this city. Since two days ago. There’s a tournament we’re in; tonight Haruka’s there since it’s his… bracket’s…”

Shuuya knew that his surprise was showing on his face, but he’d care a lot more if he couldn’t feel every muscle in his body frozen in an instinctive panic. Haruka’s here. _Haruka’s…_

“Wha… you’re actually suspecting Haruka, aren’t you?!”

“… Hey, Ene.”

“…” She puffed out her cheeks and crossed her arms. “Yeah, what?”

“If something happens to your body while you are being Ene, do you think the you who is Ene would notice it?”

“Wha—aaa _aah_ _don’t say things like that!_ Like I said, Haruka’s out at the tournament, and besides, it’d still take over an hour to get to you guys by train…!”

“But for someone like Konoha,” Shuuya finally fought down his fear enough to get his expression back under control, and settled back on the bench casually, “to whom the limits of a normal human body are completely irrelevant, being _only_ that far away isn’t much of an inconvenience, is it?”

“Well… ah… no, I guess… not. But, why not me, then?! I’m not even with my body, and you’re still talking about Haruka like he’s…!”

“Ah, don’t misunderstand. The you who isn’t Ene is still a suspect, too. But there are two reasons why… ah, I guess it would be correct to say, Konoha is now far and away the most likely suspect of all. First of all, he’s the only one who has been possessed by ‘that guy’ in the past. You were there to see it as well.”

That terrifying dark shape that swallowed the white figure and spit out a black one in its place.

“The second… well, I never told you it, since it didn’t matter, so don’t take it the wrong way that you’re just finding it out now. If there’s anyone ‘that guy’ would favor, it would be Konoha. Since he had been planning to make Konoha his body from the very beginning.”

He knew it was the sort of thing that was going to take a few seconds to sink in. For several moments, it almost looked as if his phone had frozen, as the girl on it didn’t move one bit.

Finally, she managed to make a weak sound.

“L… Liar. That… That has to be a lie…!”

He grinned. “I’m a liar and I lie, but I’m not lying to you!” Of course, who could believe such an unbelievable statement?

But considering the common ground between himself and Takane, it wasn’t entirely a surprise that she took his suspicious statements and believed what she had to out of them. “I… I’ll be back.”

She disappeared from the screen, and Shuuya finally closed his contacts list and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Haruka, huh…?”

Ah, truly this was the worst possible situation.


	5. サークルサーキット – Circle Circuit

Takane Enomoto, alias “Ene”, age 23, professional gamer.

Actually, that sort of thing wasn’t a title she was particularly proud of. In a way, she would rather have a more reasonable career, and play video games at a professional level on the side. Even if it meant that she didn’t make as much money through it, playing so much and so often meant that over the years, the fun she had playing these games waned.

It was different at competitions. At competitions, when prizes were at stake and everyone was on edge and trying to do their best, she thrived. She loved the way she could made grown men more than twice her size cower at the sight of her, and she loved the way that she could kick the asses of young upstarts who thought they were handed an easy opponent. If she could only do competitions, that would probably make her happiest.

Playing just a few of the most popular shooters, she’d fought hard for years and made it to the top rank in Japan in all but one of them, and within the top eight worldwide for two. Maintaining that rank meant almost daily practice, though, so she didn’t have time for much else. It was funny how nostalgic studying seemed when she didn’t have the chance to do it anymore. It was hard to focus on something you’d only get a little better at. That was why studying had never appealed to her before. It was why practice seemed so much less enjoyable now.

Somehow, though, Shintaro was still better than her. If someone like him competed, she knew she’d be outclassed. But Shintaro was out making something of his life, unlike her who really had nothing that she was good at besides these games. It wasn’t fair that someone like him was so talented. But… maybe it was a little to her credit that such a person was no longer wasting away and shutting out the entire world. She hadn’t been completely useless to him.

It was kind of ironic that she had spent all that time stuck behind a screen, and now that she was out, she was stuck in front of one instead. The entire world lay stretched out before her, and in her weakness she clung to the single possibility she knew of that had any chance of leading to any sort of future for her. Maybe through all these years she hadn’t grown up at all.

Ah, Takane really had wanted to go to university with Haruka, after all.

 

* * *

 

Only once in her life had she been happier to wake up in her own body. Opening her eyes, she was greeted by the darkened hotel room around her, and the empty bed next to hers. Haruka… wasn’t back yet.

Maybe that was for the best.

Though it caused a sharp pain in her heart to think something like that.

If what Shuuya suspected was true… well, what could she even do? Run away? She couldn’t go reserve a second room, nor would it be reasonable for her to find somewhere else to leave her body if she returned to her digital form. She couldn’t just abandon them, either; probably Shintaro and Tsubomi were already wondering where she’d gone. Was anything to be done, if she were truly at the mercy of the guy who’d already tried to kill them all?

“Aaargh! Why’d that brat have to go and scare me, huh?! ‘The most likely suspect of all’?! You’re not even a real detective, so stop trying to sound cool or whatever!”

Saying it didn’t make her feel much better, but she settled back on her own bed anyway and glanced to her phone. It was already almost midnight, but she knew that. Still, time always seemed a little weird when she was in that other body. Most likely, Haruka would get back within the next hour.

“Hey… you’re not going to do something stupid like kill me while I’m asleep, right?”

She closed her eyes again, and felt the tug of the cell phone connection prickling at the back of her neck. No sooner did she latch onto it than the feeling of her body abruptly dropped away, making her experience what she’d otherwise have described as her stomach giving a little flip, and a digital world of information and screens appeared around her.

Time to get back to the Commander’s phone. Ah, it was kind of boring when Shintaro locked her out like that, she thought as she followed the map drawn by the phone number from her own contacts list to her destination. It really wasn’t as fun when she couldn’t hold Master’s data hostage after all.

* * *

 

“Hey, where did you wander off to?!”

Shintaro’s voice was slightly hushed, even though next to him, Tsubomi’s red eyes meant that he had little reason to keep his voice down.

Takane simply grinned from behind the screen. “Ah, I was checking a few different things around the web. A lot of people were saying different things about this and that, so I wondered if some of them might be useful for our current predicament!”

“… And?”

“Not a one!” She shook her head for emphasis, then looked around for what she could see from the screen, even glancing through the back camera, but nothing obvious stood out. “So? What’s the situation?”

“Well, it’s surprisingly busy back here, but I think we found a camera that we can tamper with without anyone getting close enough to be a problem. Though on our way here, _someone_ bumped into someone or other, and so we got distracted for a minute…”

The Commander really did look scary when she gave Shintaro that sort of a look. Even Shintaro seemed to think so, as he quickly turned his gaze away from her, but considering Shintaro had become quite a pushover that kind of a reaction wasn’t unexpected.

“Right, right… so, can you hold me up behind it to get a look?”

Tsubomi lifted her phone, and a second later she was suddenly obscured by a black shape. The back of the security camera. Despite probably being in a dark corner, there was actually enough light to see by. If either of them had done that deliberately, she thought to herself, it would have been Shintaro. So probably she shouldn’t praise them for it.

Takane stared at the connections for a few seconds. “Heheheh… Commander! I can use this! If you pull out the middle wire, it should be able to connect to your phone!”

“Oh… okay!” Tsubomi reached up and the screen went unsteady for a few seconds. Suddenly, Takane saw a new system connected to the phone.

“Alright! I’ll be back soon! Don’t unplug the phone until I say to, no matter what!” Though she didn’t actually know what would happen if her digital form were completely cut off from her real body. But with that, she dove into the new network.

It wasn’t hard to find the security room. It was, after all, where all of the camera feeds were headed. In a closed system like this, navigating was extremely simple.

It was, about as expected, a room with a lot of monitors, and two people sitting within. But that wasn’t what Takane was here for, so she quickly let them be before they noticed her on one of their screens. There had to be somewhere around here that was backing up the footage…

The connection was inactive?

Sure enough, a closed system was easy to find her way around in, so locating the one connection that wasn’t “from a security camera” but “to something that stores data” was trivial. But despite the fact that the connection had much higher bandwidth than the others, no data was actually flowing on it.

Ah, of course not. There was nothing at the other end of it. What must have been there before had been disconnected.

Disconnected… in the closed system. So there were no backups…? No, not when someone had come in ahead of time and disconnected it, but even then at some point that person should show up on at least one of the cameras before they managed to break that connection. But in order to see it, her side had to find a connection to the backup system directly; if it was cut off from the rest then there was no network for Takane to find it on.

Dammit. So _that guy_ had planned for her to use her ability like this all along?

But more pressingly, she could hear a voice from the security room, along with the distinctive sound of a call radio being used.

“Right, camera 12C. It’s been transmitting nothing but static for at least a minute. Thank you. Let me know what you find.”

Ah. Uh-oh.

“Commander!” She was back into Tsubomi’s phone in record time, if there were any sort of record for such things or anyone whom she could even compete against for one. “Bad news! They noticed you disconnect the camera! You’re good to take out the cable! We have to move right now; I’ll tell you what I found after!”

“Wha—Dammit!”

The connection disappeared and the view from the screen went shaky, as the sound of Tsubomi and Shintaro’s loud footsteps suddenly started up. Takane wasn’t sure how far the two of them had to go, so she left it up to Tsubomi’s judgment and sat tight, waiting for the two of them to talk to her first.

She was only waiting a minute or so, then two faces appeared in her view. “Alright, this is probably good for a little while. What did you find?”

She hated how hopeful their faces looked.

“A… ah, about that. He beat us to it.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“It seems the backup system was disconnected from the rest of the network. So I could only get what was on the cameras right then… If we find the backup itself and connect to that, there might still be footage of him… but we’d have to go to it directly, and these sorts of things are always hidden, so even with the floorplans and schematics I have I don’t know where we’d look for it. Sorry… I think this might be a dead end.”

Shintaro gave a huff. “Well, even if we did find it, he could’ve destroyed whatever he wanted already. Still… this means he’s definitely taking steps to prevent us from stopping him. Knowing that is at least something, I guess. Thanks.”

… Eh?

Eh?

Eeeh?

Did Shintaro actually, truly, without any visible coercion, just thank her?

“… Hey, what’s that look for?”

“Mm-mm, it’s nothing! You’re welcome, Master! Now—ah! I’m going back to the brat! You guys can manage alone from here, right?”

… Ah, whoops. She hadn’t meant to imply that she’d been with Shuuya before. Ah, maybe they wouldn’t notice. Possibly.

“Hey. You still alive?”

The view from the new screen panned upwards until she saw Shuuya’s face staring down at her with that infuriating grin of his. “Ah, isn’t that my line? And here I was so worried about you when you’ve been gone so long!”

“Huh?! I said I’d be back, didn’t I?! Not that I was coming back right away!”

“True, true. Oh, guess who woke up?”

But she didn’t have to guess. Shuuya turned the phone around, and Takane found herself looking at Hibiya, who seemed to still be slightly disgruntled and still rather worse for the wear but was at least sipping a water bottle he’d gotten from somewhere. He also didn’t seem too enthusiastic about Takane’s presence. “You’re still doing that sort of weird thing?”

“I’ll give you a thousand yen to punch him for me,” she said to Shuuya by way of response.

But Shuuya just laughed, so instead she puffed out her cheeks and crossed her arms. Not being somewhere in person definitely had its downsides.

“Besides, you don’t get to call it weird, Mr. Peeping Tom!”

“Wha—Don’t call me a peeping tom like I’ve already done something wrong!”

“You went looking for your girlfriend, right?! So what would’ve happened if when you found her, she was…?”

Ah, whoops again. Hibiya’s face instantly twisted into something between mortified and crushed, and he quickly looked away, though she could tell his shoulders were shaking.

“Aa-ah, and here I’d just gotten him to calm down. Ene, you’re so terrible…!”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m… a little kid, or something! I’m fine!”

It would have been more convincing if Hibiya didn’t already sound like he was in the middle of crying. Still, Takane gave a soft sigh. “But, hey. You didn’t see what happened to Hiyori, right?”

Hibiya shook his head. “By the time I actually got something useful out of my power, it was already stuck on Momo.”

“So that’s when you saw… huh.”

What exactly did Hibiya see, from the vantage point that his ability afforded him? Takane had only watched the clip, which was still more than the rest of them had seen. Surely, for several minutes before the incident, Momo’s eyes had been a bright red. But all she saw of the moment that the stage collapsed was one frame where it looked like at least one of Momo’s feet had left the ground, and the next, she was entirely obscured from the camera’s view.

It wasn’t enough to know, but it was a pretty good guess that she’d been hit hard.

But asking Hibiya now would probably be twisting the knife further.

“Then… Hiyori might still be okay.”

“… Maybe. But I can’t see her.” Still facing away, Hibiya pulled himself into a ball on the bench. “You guys can just… make your abilities _work!_ I’ve got… I’ve got no idea how to control mine. None! It’ll just… sometimes it starts, and it doesn’t show me what I want… or it just won’t start at all… It sucks! I hate it!”

The screen shifted, and Takane had to move to the side to just barely see that Shuuya had moved closer and slung his arm around Hibiya’s shoulders. “You know! That’s the exact same sort of feeling the rest of us had. ‘Ah, this is truly terrible,’ and ‘ah, why is this sort of thing happening to me?’ Having your wish granted is terrifying, isn’t it?”

Hibiya didn’t move. “I didn’t make any wish.”

“You did. We all did. We all wanted something we couldn’t have, and so we were given our wishes anyway. That’s how this world came to be a terrible place.” Shuuya put his phone down, and Takane could no longer see the two of them. “Wanting something so badly you’d go against the very way the world works to get it… it’s so selfish, isn’t it? You only realize that selfishness when you look back on it. It’s so easy to get caught up in wanting something when you don’t have it. So, tell me—”

“—Hibiya, did you have a wish like that recently?” It wasn’t Shuuya’s voice anymore. It was a girl’s voice. A voice that Takane only just barely remembered, and probably wouldn’t have placed if they hadn’t just been talking about her.

Hiyori’s voice.

“Hey, Kano—!!!”

Suddenly she heard the sound of bushes being disrupted, followed quickly by a _different_ girl’s voice, this one shouting. “Kano, what the _hell_ do you think you’re doing to him?!”

Again the bushes rustled, and Shuuya just barely came into view, visibly no worse for the wear, though with the addition of a leaf stuck in his hair. “Ah, Commander, welcome back!”

“Huh—?! Don’t you ‘welcome back’ me! You’d better have a good explanation if you don’t want me to put you back on the ground again!”

“Ah, I do, I do! But first, you promised me you’d give a full report when you—”

Ah, he was in the bushes again.

“You. First.”

This time, when Shuuya pulled himself back onto the bench, he grabbed his phone and put it in his pocket, as if he’d forgotten Takane was in it in the first place. She gave a soft huff and quickly moved to Tsubomi’s, which at least let her get a better view of what was going on. Sure enough, she and Shintaro had made it back, and both were throwing very unamused glares in Kano’s direction. Hibiya, for his part, was still curled up on the bench, though his expression was considerably darker.

“Why, I was seeing if I could rule out one of our suspects!”

“… Huh? Suspects?”

“Older Kisaragi would know what I’m talking about!” From the way Shintaro shifted and glanced away at that, it seemed that even with such an ambiguous phrase he had understood, and it was almost as if he was being implicated as an accomplice to some crime or another. “After all, it could be that the most important thing to figure out right now is ‘who’ exactly ‘that guy’ is.”

“… Kisaragi, if you get it, can you explain in less vague words?”

Shintaro cast Shuuya a glare. “Well, so… the snakes possess people, right? And they need bodies. Even ‘that guy’. Ours went back to us, but we don’t know whose body _he’s_ in.”

“But, wouldn’t he just go for the same person that he brought back to li…?” Tsubomi trailed off, and a couple seconds later, her gaze dropped. “Ah, or, not.”

“Yeah. But I don’t know what that has to do with pretending to be Hiyori, so that’s still on this guy to explain.”

Tsubomi cast a glare Shuuya’s direction, and this time Shuuya jumped. “Ah, wait, wait! So, ‘that guy’ goes for wishes, right? That’s what he said. So I thought if I could get Hibiya to say if he did or did not have that sort of a wish, we’d have more information! Wouldn’t you think that might be a good reason that ‘that guy’ might be drawn to him? It was to see if maybe we could learn a bit more, you know.”

“You…” All three turned to Hibiya. “You imitated Hiyori for something like that?!” Eyes suddenly red, he lunged for Shuuya.

“Hibiya—!”

Takane couldn’t even follow it. The two bodies seemed to move together in a blur, and when they came to a stop, Hibiya was face down on the ground, one arm pushed up behind his back. His free hand was clenched into a fist against the ground, and he winced as Shuuya’s knee dug into his lower back. Shuuya’s other hand was gripping the back of his neck.

Shuuya was grinning.

“Ah, a wonderful reaction! So tell me, which is it? Do you really hate me so much? Or did we catch our perpetrator already?”

When the hell had the brat learned to move like that?!

“Ugh… I hate you!”

“Tell me that without red eyes.”

Shuuya’s knee pressed harder, and Hibiya gave a soft shout of pain. He winced again, closing his eyes, and when he opened them, they were back to their normal brown color. “I… I hate you. I really, really hate you.”

Shuuya let up.

A moment later, Tsubomi shoved him hard, pushing him completely off of Hibiya. “Kano, that was way too far!”

“Whoa—! Ahaha, sorry!” From where he landed, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. He was still grinning. “But, Commander, you didn’t stop me until the end. So you, too, thought that what I did was probably going to be useful.”

“Th-that has nothing to do with it…!” But, Takane thought, Shuuya hadn’t exactly been wrong. Shintaro didn’t interfere, either. If she were there in person, she thought, she probably wouldn’t have as well.

They were all suspicious of Hibiya on some level.

“So… what? Am I not a suspect now? Throw me on the ground and threaten me, and in exchange you aren’t going to worry about me anymore?” He pulled himself to his knees, but kept his gaze on the ground.

“Nope! But now you’re much less likely, at least! Ah, right, I was going to give Older Kisaragi the list of suspects!” Shuuya stood up enough to sit back on the bench, as if continuing a thought that hadn’t been interrupted. Shintaro gave him a flat look, but let him keep speaking anyway. “I’ll start with Hibiya here! I’d say at this point he wouldn’t be worth as much attention as the others, but we still don’t have full proof of innocence. Rather, the one to keep an eye on would be Konoha.”

“But, Haruka’s—”

“Our dear Ene helpfully informed me that the two of them are in this city for a tournament! And, I suppose you didn’t see him when you went and checked your own body was still alive, right, Ene?”

She fidgeted, gaze dropping. She hated suspecting Haruka.

But, Shintaro seemed no less terrified of this revelation than Shuuya had been the first time he’d heard. Rather, Shintaro seemed like he might be taking it even worse, with the way his eyes opened impossibly wide. Maybe that was expected.

Even though he was still wearing such an expression, Kano continued. “And speaking of Ene, she’s spent almost all of her time with us this evening, hasn’t she? So in the meantime, there’s the possibility that her body is being used for something else.”

… Ah. This would probably be how Haruka would feel if he were here to hear them talking about him. It truly did hurt to be suspected, after all.

“Next is Seto! We have no idea what he’s been up to this past day, so it could really be anything, couldn’t it? For the same reason, Marry, and Sis.”

Understandably, that seemed to have struck a nerve.

“You’re suspecting Ayano—?!”

“Why Sis of all people—?!”

Shuuya held up his hands. “Unfortunately, we can’t rule out anyone! Until we know more about what’s going on, we need to keep an open mind towards even the painful possibilities. Ah, on that note, assuming Older Kisaragi was right about Kisaragi’s fate, she’s not a suspect.”

Shintaro bristled. “Like hell she’d be, after that…!”

“And, one more!” He held up one finger for emphasis. “Someone I suppose I simply didn’t think of earlier, but perhaps the second most likely suspect after Konoha. Currently, there is one last person we know of who was swallowed by the daze and came back. This person didn’t even need a snake to do it. So thinking in these terms, wouldn’t it be appealing for a ‘snake without a person’ to find a ‘person without a snake’…?”

One by one, they each turned to Hibiya as they realized who Shuuya was talking about.

“… Hiyori…?”

“Right. If we manage to rule out Konoha, the next suspect would be Hiyori.”

Hibiya looked about ready to go after Shuuya again. “No… no way it’s Hiyori! She’s… not that sort of a person!”

“And what ‘sort of a person’ is _that_?” Tsubomi’s voice was sharp when she asked it, but she paused for a moment, catching herself, and when she continued her voice had softened. “Dad was a great person who was really loving and kind to all of us, even when we weren’t all related by blood. No one chooses to get possessed by one of the snakes. So the things that it did weren’t at all his fault.”

Takane, personally, objected to Mr. Tateyama being thought of as a “great person”, but this most certainly wasn’t the time to raise that. Besides… he’d been great to his kids. She guessed there was no denying that much.

“Anyway, that’s the report! So what happened on your end?”

Tsubomi and Shintaro went quiet, gazes falling, and finally Takane spoke up.

“Dead end. ‘Someone’ had cut off the backup from the rest of the system before we even got there. We couldn’t get at the old footage, if it even exists to be useful at all.”

“Ah, outmaneuvered? How unfortunate…!” It was really infuriating how he didn’t sound the least bit bothered by it. “Then, what’s our next plan?”

Shintaro gazed up at the nearby streetlight and the darkened sky behind it. “How about sleeping? I have no idea how you even still have that much energy, but you’ve been dragging me around for hours and I’m exhausted.” He sighed and pulled out his phone. “I wonder if Mom’s tried to contact me yet. If she got a call about Momo, she might’ve…”

His phone gave a small buzz as he turned it on, and he seemed to realize his mistake a second later. Slowly his gaze drifted to Tsubomi’s phone, where Takane was watching him with far too innocent of a smile. But his phone was already booting up.

“H… have mercy…!!”

“And whatever do you mean by _that_ , Master…?” The moment his phone was back on the network, she infiltrated it just as she had all those years ago, and his gaze snapped down to look at her as she grinned up at him. But before either of them could say anything more, a notification sounded. “Ah! Voicemail?”

“From who…? Mom?”

“Let’s find out!”

“What— _Ene!_ ” But she had already activated it, and after a second, the prerecorded message from the mailbox started playing aloud, heedless to Shintaro’s protesting. “What if it’s private?! What if it’s the sort of thing a mother would want only her son to hear?!” He pressed the button to hang up the call, but to no avail. “H-hey, Ene…!”

The alert of an incoming call sounded just as the message began playing.

“Hey, big brother!”

Shintaro froze.

“Are you out and about? If you’re not, you should turn on the TV and watch my concert! Hiyori is here as well, so if the two of you are watching, I know I’ll do my best! Okay! See you!”

Shintaro opened his mouth a little, seemed to struggle to find something to say, closed his mouth, and swallowed thickly. Takane felt her heart twist a little as she watched the way his expression shifted suddenly to something so pained, and she lowered her gaze. If she had any idea that the message had been from Momo, she probably wouldn’t have done that. But then she glanced at the incoming call message, and suddenly Momo wasn’t the only thing to worry about.

“Master! It’s Ayano!”

He jolted. But when he didn’t move, Takane picked up the call for him.

This one, at least, she knew she had to do for him.

“Ayano?!”

But the other end of the line was quiet. Tsubomi, Shuuya, and even Hibiya moved in closer to try to hear anything they could, but as the one sitting right in the device, Takane knew that there wasn’t any sound coming through.

“Hey… Sis? Are you there?” Tsubomi asked hesitantly, gaze flicking to Shintaro.

No answer came.

“A… Ayano, say something…!” Takane urged, failing to keep the rising panic out of her voice.

“Come on, Sis, this isn’t like your sorts of jokes.” Even Shuuya seemed unsettled.

Suddenly through the phone came the sound of something large hitting the ground, and all of them startled.

“I’m going over there!” Before anyone could raise protest, Takane disappeared from Shintaro’s phone, following the call to the other side.

Ayano’s phone was lying on something, facing up towards the ceiling, probably not far enough away from it to be directly on the floor. The lights in the room were on, but despite that, Takane couldn’t really see much. Though she did her best to look around, the angle was such that she could only really see a clock high up on the wall. Everything else was out of the screen’s view.

There was the sound of a cell phone camera—another phone? Whose?!

“Ayano?”

No answer. No other cellphone nearby enough to have been audible, either, at least that Takane could find with her power. Had the user disconnected it from the network?

“Who’s there?! Hey, _answer me here!”_

Footsteps, fading out. The room’s light flicked off, and there was the sound of a door opening—

“ _HEY!_ ”

—and shutting.

Whoever it was, they were gone.

That… would mostly likely have been the culprit.

“… Ayano…? Hey… h-hey, you’re there, right? Ayano? You’re still there…? Come on…! Say something…!”

She wasn’t going to cry.

She _wasn’t going to cry_ …

“Ene?” It was Shintaro’s voice coming through the phone. “She’s probably not… going to answer you.”

He made a soft noise, and suddenly Tsubomi’s voice rang out. “Don’t say something like that! Sis… _Sis_ …!”

Ah, no good. There were tears on her cheeks again.

Takane curled up in the privacy of Ayano’s phone, just letting herself cry. She hated crying. It always made her feel helpless, because it was almost always in times when she was helpless that she cried. If only she could move the phone, somehow, she could get a better look…

What would a better look do? Nothing. She couldn’t reach out and touch anything. Even if she could see, she wouldn’t be able to do anything. Ah, right, that was why she’d hated this body. In the end, it turned her completely powerless when she was needed the most.

The background on Ayano’s phone was the commemoration photo they had taken to celebrate her return. Ah, all of them looked so young back then. Even Takane, who had already passed the ages where she’d grown the most, looked younger in a way. That way that she still didn’t quite know how to smile for a picture, but was happy enough that she was smiling anyway. There was Momo, posing cheerfully… Ayano, in the middle, not quite sure how to deal with the crowd around her but genuinely happy for it…

How many people in this picture were already dead? They wouldn’t have had any idea about Ayano if she hadn’t called Shintaro. When did it happen? How? Was she already dying when she dialed his number? Was he the one she reached out for in one last attempt to save herself?

It would be just like her, wouldn’t it?

_You’d better save everyone next time, Shintaro._

“Guys?”

She didn’t realize she was probably interrupting them until she noticed the silence that followed her voice. Had they been talking? Arguing? She hadn’t even been paying attention.

“I think I’m gonna go back to my body for the night. I’ll call you in the morning, Master, so don’t you dare turn your phone off again.”

When she opened her eyes, her cheeks were already wet, and the bed next to hers was still vacant.


	6. シノビアシシーン [Shinobiashi Scene] — Soft Steps Scene

Haruka Kokonose, university student, age 23, was not a light sleeper.

“Get _up!!!_ ”

“Whoa—!!” Haruka awoke to the feeling of falling and a view of the floor approaching him very quickly. Suddenly he realized he was on the carpet, a very slight pain in the front left of his body. “Ah… Takane?”

He lifted his head to look up, and sure enough, Takane’s annoyed glare was staring down at him from on top of the bed he’d probably been on about five seconds ago. “Come on… it’s already 10! I told you we wanted to be leaving now!”

“Oh, did you? Ah… I don’t remember that…”

Normally when he’d say such a thing, Takane would give him one of her sad looks, but this time all he got was an angry pout. “Come on, didn’t you check your phone at all?! I texted you and everything!”

“Huh…? Ah, my phone! I completely forgot to turn it back on after the tournament!”

He pulled himself up from the floor and climbed back onto the bed and past Takane, who turned to watch him as he turned his cellphone back on. It booted up within a few seconds, and after a moment, buzzed as it received a text.

There it was, sure enough.

_“There’s somewhere I want to go, so let’s be ready to leave by 10 AM today, okay?”_

“Aah, sorry, Takane. I didn’t even see this…” He turned to find her pout had lost most of its anger. Now it just seemed mostly sad. “… Takane?”

“Hey, Haruka…” She glanced to the side. “You wouldn’t lie to me, right…?”

“Hmm? Well, you’re right, I wouldn’t… Why, should I?”

“N-no! Not at all! It’s just…” Why was she avoiding eye contact? “Were you really at the tournament last night? All that time?”

“Yeah. Oh, that’s right! I qualified for the top sixteen! Now you just have to do your best, too, Takane, and maybe we’ll face each other in the finals!”

She still wasn’t smiling. Had he said something wrong?

“Are you mad?”

“I’m not mad!”

Ah, she sounded mad.

“You were just… out a long time. And…” She seemed to want to say something, moving her lips a little bit like she was trying to find her words. “You don’t… have any more weird gaps in your memory, right…?

“Ah… I don’t think so. Is something wrong, Takane?”

“… Ayano’s dead, we think. Momo, too.”

“… Eh…?”

“Both happened last night… We still don’t know who’s responsible, but… it… it might be you, Haruka…”

He went quiet at that, and without realizing what he was doing, his hand drifted to his stomach.

Haruka didn’t remember anything that he—that the ‘other him’—did to the rest of them. Shintaro most of all had seemed to want to keep it from him, so probably it was indeed something really terrible. But he remembered being swallowed up in that darkness. He remembered, in bits and fragments, something enveloping him so tightly that he couldn’t move, strangling and restraining and suppressing him until his body, and even his sense of self, was completely gone.

He remembered the terrified expressions everyone had made when he opened his eyes again for the first time afterwards.

Ah, so _that monster_ was back. His hand clenched into a fist.

“It wasn’t like time didn’t slip away from me. But I don’t remember feeling anything like… like _that_ at all last night.”

Takane looked back at him with a smile, but somehow, she still didn’t look happy. “That’s… good to hear.”

She turned away again as she pulled herself off his bed.

“Anyway! Like I said, we’re gonna be late, so hurry up and get into proper clothes!”

“Alright. Where are we going?”

“Where else? We’re going to see some old friends!”

Haruka’s face lit up. “The Mekakushi Dan?”

Takane rolled her eyes, but she smiled a little at that. “Yeah.”

 

* * *

 

Memories from before he had regained the name ‘Haruka’ were often hazy and indistinct, and the memories from before he was ‘Konoha’ were completely gone. Those missing years of his life had become a simple fact that Haruka dealt with the way he did everything else. It wasn’t that it never hurt. He knew, because he had been told, that he used to be really close with Shintaro, Ayano, and Takane most of all. They had memories of him that he would never reciprocate, though Ayano once expressed regret that she’d never had the chance to use her ability to at least share them with him.

At first there had been an attempt to bring together their group once more, but it had been over two years since they had all been scattered in different directions, and in the meantime their lives had all shifted dramatically. Each one of them had to deal with the two years that had vanished on them, and before they knew it, they had become unable to spare the time to casually get together nearly so often. Haruka never managed to shake the feeling that it was indeed ultimately his fault that they had stopped trying. Even if he still thought of them as his closest friends, that seemed to matter little when his lack of memories made him almost a complete stranger to them. Though ‘Haruka’ was still alive, the boy who they’d all been schoolmates with had indeed died for good on that one August 15th.

Even still, Takane stuck with him. It was a good thing for him, since he had no real idea how to handle his situation on his own. The two of them had a convenient excuse: “Both of our illnesses got bad around the same time, so we were in a private hospital for treatment and recovery,” though Haruka had no memory of ever being sick. After all, apparently they both had died from attacks, so to change that to being moved to a private hospital didn’t seem unreasonable, especially when both of them had appeared to have completely recovered later.

It didn’t explain things perfectly, but they hadn’t yet run into a situation where they needed more than that.

He just wished that he wasn’t so completely unable to reciprocate their feelings. He wished he knew Ayano and Shintaro better than he felt he did. He wished they didn’t feel so much closer to the memory of him than to the him that existed now. He wished Takane didn’t have to tell him about memories of the two of them that she seemed to cherish so strongly.

They were pointless hopes, but they were things he couldn’t help wanting anyway.

 

* * *

 

Haruka had expected them to go back to the old base, so when instead the two of them found themselves standing outside of a house a little before noon, he looked at Takane in confusion. “Why are we here?”

“Augh, you ask me that every time we come here! This is the Kisaragi’s place! Try to remember for once, geeze.”

“Oh.” He watched as she pressed the doorbell. “But if I’m not mistaken, we haven’t been back here in at least two years…”

“No, last time was… hmm… oh, you’re right. I guess that _was_ over two years ago.”

Was two years _actually_ so long ago? Or did it just seem that way because his memories didn’t go back very many years beyond that? Before Haruka could get lost considering it, Takane rang the doorbell.

It was answered by a woman that Haruka didn’t recognize. From her expression, it seemed she didn’t quite recognize them, either.

“Ah, Ms. Kisaragi! It’s been a while. We used to go to school with Shintaro, do you remember? I’m Takane Enomoto, and this guy’s Haruka Kokonose.”

Takane seemed to be forcing herself to smile pleasantly, but luckily, it didn’t take long before a look of recognition dawned on Ms. Kisaragi’s face. “Oh, Takane! Yes, I remember you. Thank you for taking care of Shintaro back then. And, Haruka…” Glancing to him, her expression faltered, but she tried to cover it up with a weak smile. “Ah, thank you as well. Do you two… mind waiting outside? Normally I’d invite you in, but I’m not sure now is… the best time. I’ll go see how Shintaro is feeling.”

Without waiting for a response, she abruptly closed the door again.

Takane finally relaxed, letting her smile shift into the flat expression that was more normal for her. “Guess she got the news about Momo, huh?”

“Ah, you’re right, that would be what that was about, wouldn’t it?” Takane turned a slight glare his direction, but Haruka’s gaze was on a second-floor window. “She didn’t seem to recognize me at all, though.”

“Well, you _do_ look really different from before. And kind of like a weirdo.” She put a finger on the spot on his cheek where a mole apparently used to be, which had long since been replaced by a pair of dark brown circles with lines that looked nothing if not drawn on.

Haruka laughed slightly sheepishly and ran a hand through his hair—ah, that was different, too, wasn’t it? He was so used to having gray hair that it just felt like that’s how it was supposed to be, but in the pictures from before his hair was black. “Well, it’s good that you look similar enough that she believed you!”

“Is it? Yeah, I guess. Hey, do you think Shintaro is gonna let us in?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

She gave him a look as if he should know the answer to that, but Haruka just gave a slightly baffled one in return. “You know what? I’m going up there. Haruka, catch me.”

“Huh—?” But he barely had time to react, as Takane’s legs gave out beneath her and she started to fall. Haruka managed to grab her before she completely collapsed, and awkwardly lowered her to the ground in an approximation of a crouch.

It wasn’t very long until suddenly a loud, shrill noise started to echo from the second story window he’d been staring at before, almost immediately followed by a voice shouting in surprise. The sound soon cut off but the voice didn’t, yelling something that Haruka couldn’t quite make out.

Suddenly Takane straightened up in his grip. “Shintaro says he’ll be down shortly!”

“Oh, that’s good!”

Takane gave him a slightly weird look as she pulled herself back to her feet, but even if she was thinking about commenting, she didn’t say anything.

Sure enough, the sounds of heavy footsteps were soon audible beyond the door, which was soon opened by a familiar figure wearing a glare on his face.

”Ah, Shintaro! It’s been a while!”

“—Oh, uh. Hi, Haruka.” He seemed caught off-guard at that, but managed to cast another quick glare Takane’s way. She smirked in return. “Won’t you two come in?” Shintaro asked through slightly grit teeth, and Takane put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest a little.

“Why, don’t mind if we do, thanks!” Takane strolled in proudly, and Haruka soon followed.

“We’ll be up in my room,” Shintaro shouted to the side to his mother, before leading the two of them in and up a staircase that now that he thought about it, Haruka seemed to vaguely recall.

Takane immediately sat herself in the chair at Shintaro’s desk. He leaned past her to close his laptop, for which she gave him a small glare, before sitting down on his bed. With no better place to sit, Haruka settled next to him.

“You know, your computer speakers could get _much_ louder than that!”

“Yeah, and I’m glad I didn’t have them plugged in.” Shintaro gave a sigh and settled back a little, gaze drifting to Haruka. “So? Why did you two come all the way here?”

“Well… to figure out whether or not either of us is guilty, I guess.”

Shintaro was quiet for several seconds then let out a huff through his nose. His gaze remained on Haruka for another moment, then he turned to instead stare blankly at a wall. “So what happens if you are? You’ll kill me, right?”

He sounded so unaffected when he asked it, but it made Haruka’s chest tighten.

“Well… yeah, maybe. But then you’ll at least know, right…?”

“This isn’t a game.” Shintaro raised his voice a little, glancing back at Takane before lying down on his bed with his back to Haruka. “Don’t act like there’s just a convenient reset button for when we lose…!”

“I’m sorry.” Shintaro lifted his head in surprise to look at Haruka, who had lowered his gaze to the floor. “This is my fault, isn’t it? Because, last time, I…”

“H-hey, Haruka, don’t go apologizing like that! You didn’t even do anything!” Haruka kept his gaze on the ground. Shintaro said nothing. “Come on, Shintaro, back me up here!”

“Takane.”

She jumped.

“Didn’t you just bring Haruka here so that you could feel better? Without thinking about the possible consequences, you just went with what you wanted to be true.”

“Wha… what’s with that sort of accusation?! That’s not it at all!”

Shintaro flopped back down on the bed, just as a knock sounded on his door.

“Shintaro? I brought tea.”

“… Yeah, come on in.”

He didn’t move.

Takane and Haruka both looked up as Shintaro’s mother entered. She spotted Shintaro on the bed and paused for a moment, then put on a strained smile. “Ah, you’ll have to forgive him if he seems a little out of sorts… Here, drink up. Feel free to let me know if you want any more.”

She left the tray with its cups on the desk next to Takane and left, and a heavy silence settled on the room in her wake.

Haruka found his hand clenched in his shirt over his stomach again. He didn’t like thinking that that terrible monster might be inside of him right now. What would it be waiting for? How long until it was going to consume him again and cause such pain to those he cared about? Was there anything he could do about it?

He’d been completely helpless last time. For all the strength his body had had, that was lost and turned on him in an instant. A body that could do what his had done, back when he’d had his ability before… would surely be a terrifying thing in the hands of someone who wanted to hurt people.

In that case, maybe it would have been best if his wish hadn’t been granted at all.

“Did anything else happen yesterday, after I left?”

Haruka looked up to find Takane looking at him with a sad expression, but she quickly looked away when she realized he’d noticed her. Shintaro missed it entirely.

“… Not really. Kano and Kido went to check on Ayano. Apparently… her body was still there. So… now they’ve both been confirmed.”

“Then, Momo’s definitely…?”

He sighed. “… Yeah. They’re keeping it quiet for the sake of publicity, but apparently she was dead before she even reached the hospital.”

“My condolences,” Haruka murmured quietly. “It must be really rough on you…”

From where he was laying on the bed, he gave a small, dismissive wave. Somehow, such a thing only made Haruka’s chest hurt more.

On his desk, Shintaro’s phone started ringing. Takane glanced over to it.

“Hey, it’s Commander.”

Shintaro gave what sounded like a frustrated groan, but rolled over and sat up anyway. He grabbed the phone and immediately put it on speaker as he answered. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Kisaragi?” Tsubomi’s voice sounded shaky, and she took a deep breath before continuing. “I-I think Kano’s probably dead.”

It took a few seconds for the words to sink in.

“Wait… how? When? A-are you sure?”

“Well… I don’t know for sure. But,” her voice wavered again. “After we checked on Sis, he said he was going to swing by Seto and Marry’s place. He said… he’d definitely text me when he got back home. Like he knew. Stupid… he probably _did_ know. I’ve called his cell and his home and he hasn’t answered either, so…!”

They sat in silence for a few moments. Shintaro’s gaze flicked up to Takane, then back to his phone. “Hey… do you know if he made it to their place?”

“I… no. I don’t have any idea.”

“Then let’s meet up. Takane and Haruka are here, so… well, travelling as a group might be safest. We’ll get Seto and Marry and figure out what to do from there. Can you collect Hibiya?”

“… Yeah. I can do that. Where should we meet?” She seemed to have calmed down a little, now that there was the start of a plan.

“There’s that park that’s a couple blocks from the hideout, right? We’ll meet there. If you can’t make it there in half an hour, send one of us a text.”

“Right. Absolutely.”

 

* * *

 

The three of them were five minutes early, but Tsubomi had already beaten them there. There was a definite look of relief on her face as she spotted them.

“Commander! It’s been a while!”

“Ah, Konoha…” she scrunched her face a little at that, as if not entirely satisfied with the name, but continued. “It’s good to see you again.”

“What about Hibiya?” Shintaro skipped straight to the point.

Her gaze fell and she shifted her stance in discomfort. “He… didn’t answer. Well, I didn’t tell him to keep his phone on him or anything… I left him a text, so hopefully he’ll reply soon.”

“Ah… anyway, let’s go see about Seto and Marry. Do they still live at the base?”

“Yeah.” With that, Tsubomi’s eyes turned red, and she turned, starting to lead the way.

Haruka turned to Takane and gave an excited whisper. “Ah, I haven’t been back to the base in so long!”

“H… Hey! Don’t look so happy when we’re going through a crisis, here!” She gave a heavy sigh. “You’ve gotten better at reading the mood, but sometimes, I have to wonder…”

“But it’s still fun to see friends, isn’t it? This is my first time being with Shintaro in years, too!”

“We’re together because we’re being hunted, you know?” Shintaro tossed over his shoulder. “A good hunter relies on picking off its targets when they stray from the group. Skilled prey senses that something’s wrong and gathers its strength via numbers… huh.” He gave a frustrated sigh. “Thinking of it that way, the metaphor is actually way too accurate…”

“Well, there’s no harm in calling it what it is,” Tsubomi added, a little quiet. “All of us thought the same things when we heard about Kisaragi, after all. ‘This can’t be coincidence’ and ‘I could also be killed.’ Maybe it’s something like an instinct.”

They approached the door, and even Haruka remembered the distinctive 107 that marked it, even though there weren’t enough other units on the first floor to deserve a numbering as high as 7. Tsubomi hesitated, then knocked.

“Hey! Anyone home? Kosuke? Marry? It’s Tsubomi!”

The seconds passed as all of them held their breath, but finally there was a sound of shuffling from the other side of the door. The lock clicked open, and a pink eye peeked out at them. “… Ah! It really is Tsubomi!”

Marry opened the door wider, and that was when she seemed to notice the rest of them. For a few moments, she stood still as if dumbstruck, looking between all of them.

“… Is it alright to come in?”

“—Ah! Yes, come on in! I—eep!” No sooner had she spun on her heels to move out of the way and let them inside than she fell down in a graceless tumble.

Marry continued to lie on the floor in front of them for a good few seconds. Finally, Tsubomi awkwardly stepped around her and made her way inside. “Excuse me…”

She suddenly seemed to realize she was still blocking the doorway and scrambled to her feet, moving to the side to let the rest of them through. “Sorry! Sorry… ah…” Once they’d entered she closed the door behind them and stood there for a moment, looking at the four visitors.

“… Marry, is something wrong?”

“Oh! Well, it’s just… I wasn’t expecting to see you all…” Her gaze drifted to the floor for a moment and she shifted from foot to foot, an almost guilty-looking frown on her face. She opened her mouth as if to say something, seemed to think better of it, and hurriedly made for the kitchen. “I-I’ll make everyone some tea…!”

“Marry.” Tsubomi’s voice sounded serious enough that even Haruka jumped a little. Marry startled and stopped short, gaze snapping to Tsubomi’s, a look of fear in her eyes. “What’s wrong? Is it something with Kosuke?”

For several seconds, Marry seemed frozen in place except for a shivering that shook her entire body. Abruptly, she dropped to her knees and began crying.

“Ah! Marry…?” Tsubomi looked to the rest of them for help, clearly surprised.

After a moment, Haruka walked over, kneeled down next to Marry, and started rubbing her head the way he’d sometimes seen Kosuke do. That just seemed to make her cry harder, though. He slowed to a stop, but she gripped the front of his shirt and buried her face in the fabric.

“… os… ead.”

She mumbled it, so he barely heard any of what she’d said. Tentatively, he put his hands on her shoulders. “What was that, Marry?”

Fists still clenched in his shirt, she moved back a little and sniffled. “Kosuke’s dead.”

“Eh…?”

Tsubomi was suddenly kneeling down next to them, leaning in close. “Since… since when?!”

“… Yesterday. I was asleep when he left, but by the time I woke up, he…” Her voice broke, and she buried her face back against Haruka’s chest for another few moments, shoulders shaking.

“Marry…” Tsubomi went to put a hand on her shoulder, paused, and let that hand fall back to her side. It seemed she didn’t quite know what to do in this sort of situation, either. “You’re… absolutely sure?”

Marry nodded her head. “His snake came back… and…”

Finally she let go of Haruka, standing up and making her way to a bookshelf. On top of it was a phone plugged into a charger. She unplugged it, fumbled with it a little bit, cringed, and brought it back to Tsubomi.

“… I’m sorry.” She held it out, and Tsubomi took it. As she and the others gathered around it, Marry’s gaze fell to the ground and she grasped her hands together over her chest.

A picture was displayed on the phone’s screen. It was dark, nighttime, but there was still enough light to tell what was going on. A delivery truck of some sort seemed to be crashed into a building. A small distance away in front of it lay a crumpled figure facing away from the camera, short black hair the only visible identifier of who it might be.

But that much seemed to be enough for Tsubomi.

“K… Kosuke…?!”

She pressed a hand to her mouth, looking as if she might be sick. Marry glanced up at her and almost immediately lowered her gaze. She fidgeted, then spoke again in a near-whisper. “There’s more.”

Tsubomi’s eyes went wide, but then with shaking fingers, she swiped to the side.

Instantly the picture was replaced with another. This time, there was no mistaking the figure in the photo. She was half-obscured by a large, metal structure, but even the red stain enveloping part of her body wasn’t enough to dye all of the distinctive yellow and orange completely.

Shintaro tried to say something, but all that made it out was a weak sound. Takane and Haruka continued to look on in stunned silence.

The next picture was comparatively peaceful, but following the other two, it was no less somber. With the way she was laying, Ayano looked almost as if she could have been asleep on the floor. “Ah, it’s the photo I heard…” Takane mumbled quietly. “So it was for something like this…”

But that was when tears started slipping down Tsubomi’s face. “No… that’s enough…!”

Her hands were shaking badly enough that Shintaro took the phone from her. He stared at the picture another few seconds, his face twisted in pain, before swallowing thickly and swiping to the side.

Tsubomi let out a noise of distress and quickly jolted backwards, putting her hands over her eyes. This picture was darker than the rest, but it was still easy enough to tell what was happening. A streetlight was reflected off the surface of the water, next to a mostly-submerged body wearing a black hoodie with white spots on it.

Shintaro swiped to the side again, and Haruka felt his entire body go cold.

The figure in the next photo was lying in a crumpled heap on the ground, red staining his jacket and pooling in a dark puddle beneath him from the obviously bleeding wound on his head.

“… Hibiya, huh…”

Shintaro tried to swipe again, but there were no more pictures. Haruka let out a breath that he didn’t realize he’d been holding.

“I… I’m sorry… This is all my fault…!” Marry took a step backwards, shaking.

Shintaro looked up at her, his gaze slightly pitying. “Something like this… isn’t your fault at all.”

“It is!” She stepped backwards again, bumping into the bookshelf behind her. “If I’d… if I’d just kept the snakes… this wouldn’t be happening…!” She pressed her hands to her ears. “I… I shouldn’t have done this…!”

Shintaro seemed like he wanted to say something, but before he managed to speak up, Haruka stepped forwards and wrapped his arms around Marry. She startled.

“Why…?”

“Why? Ah, I don’t really know. But I thought it might make you feel better, right?” He placed a hand on her head again. “It must be really hard to feel responsible for what’s going on. But, Marry, I don’t think that’s right. You didn’t do anything hoping that this sort of thing would happen. We can only do what we can. If someone else is hurting people, that’s not your fault. It’s theirs. So don’t worry about things like that.”

She was crying into his chest again, and this time she didn’t stop. He wasn’t sure quite how much time passed like that, but it was long enough that Shintaro stopped flipping through the pictures and returned the phone to the charger. He gave a glance towards Haruka, then to Marry in his arms, then back to the others. “Well… I guess we’re who’s left now.”

“Yeah, we are. So what do we do about it?” Takane crossed her arms and gave Shintaro an expectant look.

“… Hell if I know.” He glanced around the room, as if trying to find something to answer that question, himself.

His gaze finally settled on Marry.

“We’ll stay together until something comes of this, one way or another.”

“You mean until we’re _all_ dead.”

Oh no, Marry was crying harder now. Haruka pulled her a little closer, not quite sure what else to do.

“ _Enomoto!_ ”

“What? Don’t give me that like it’s not what you’re thinking, too. It’s what we’re all thinking!” She crossed her arms and moved to sit down on the couch with a flop. “Besides… for most of us, this time will just be gone, anyway, right? We won’t remember that any of this happened, or any of what we did here. We’re only doing any of this for those two; otherwise we might as well already be de—”

Marry shrieked, pressing her hands to her ears, and before Haruka realized what he was doing he had already shifted his arms around her as if to further block Takane’s words. Finally he turned in Takane’s direction, a serious expression on his face.

Takane had turned at the noise, so she didn’t miss the look that Haruka shot her. She shrunk away underneath it, trying to look away but always glancing back again soon after, as if unable to avert her gaze. “… I…”

Tsubomi sat down next to her, close enough that their shoulders were touching.

“I get that it’s rough. But we can’t go taking it out on each other. We need to stick together right now, more than anything else.”

She finally managed to look away from Haruka, lowering her gaze. “I… I shouldn’t have brought Haruka here.”

“… Enomoto, that’s the opposite of what I just—”

“Either way, it was a mistake!” She leaned forwards, shivering slightly. “If… if Haruka’s not the culprit, then I put both of us in danger by coming here. And if… he _is_ the one, then I’ve put everyone else in danger just because I was scared of dying!”

Haruka startled.

“People are already dead, idiot.” Shintaro sat down on the other side of her, though not nearly as close as Tsubomi. “No matter who it is, that guy’s proven that he can get to wherever we are. Being together is the best we can do, even if _he’s_ here as well. Otherwise he wouldn’t be going through the trouble of picking us off one at a time.”

“Somehow, this feels very different, though.” Shintaro glanced over to Tsubomi in confusion, and she stared back at him evenly. “Last time he waited for us to gather ourselves and then went at us all at once in front of Marry, right?”

“Last time, he lost,” Shintaro added. “Because everyone was there and we managed to catch him off-guard, it worked out. This time, though, I don’t know if we have anything to surprise him with. Maybe since now he knows that he’s not the only one who remembers, he’s changed his tactics.” He glanced in Marry’s direction. “In front of Marry, huh… If he’s taking photos, we don’t even need to be near her. He just kills us and sends the evidence back to her. It’s a completely different method from anything I can remember him doing before.”

“… But now we’re all near her. So if he wants to show up again, right here, with all of us…”

Takane didn’t continue, but almost all of them sucked in a breath at that, and held it. As if waiting for the snake to surface at the very suggestion.

But whether he couldn’t or didn’t want to, the seconds ticked by without incident.

Soon a strange sound filled the silence, and one by one their gazes drifted to Haruka.

“Ah, that’s right… we haven’t eaten yet, have we?” He gave a soft laugh, rubbing a hand against the back of his head as his stomach gave another rumble.

It had seemed to dispel the tension enough that even Marry pulled back from his arms a little with a huff. “Konoha, your body is being too loud!”

“Ah, sorry, sorry, it is, isn’t it? Hey, is it too late for lunch?”

Tsubomi sighed and stood up from the couch, but she had a small smile on her face. “I’ll see what I can do. It’s been a while since I made something here, huh…”

“There, um, might not be enough for this many people,” Marry warned hesitantly as she finally detached herself from Haruka and followed Tsubomi towards the kitchen. “I was going to be home alone for a few days at least, so we didn’t bother buying more food yet…”

“Hmm? Ah, well, let’s at least have a look.”

The rest of them waited for at least a minute while the sounds of Tsubomi rummaging around made their way out of the kitchen. Finally, she emerged with a sigh. “If I didn’t have to feed Kokonose, I’d say I might be able to make something work, but…”

But not feeding Haruka was perhaps a bit too much to hope for. After all, his was the only stomach that was protesting loudly enough that the rest of them could hear it.

“Then, we’d need to get ingredients…” Shintaro’s gaze drifted to the front door.

“We’ll go together,” Tsubomi declared. “Until the situation changes, no one should go off on their own. We should stay in as large a group as possible. Any objections?”

Ah, Tsubomi really did take her role as the leader seriously.

“Good. Marry and everyone, you should get ready to head out. We’re going straight to the grocery store and then right back here. Absolutely stick together.”


	7. シンタローの不明公理 [Shintaro no Fumei Kouri] – Shintaro’s Uncertain Axioms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Way back in February, I decided that I wanted to make something special for Kagerou Day. I wanted to make something big. This story is what came out of that. Very early on, I realized that there was no way that the entire story would be done by August 15th. Still, I wanted something special for the day, and so I decided this chapter would be it. 
> 
> This is my August 15th gift to you. I hope you all enjoy it, and continue to enjoy this story as it unfolds in the coming months.

Shintaro was glad that Haruka was willing to be a good sport about the problems he caused. Then again, because it was Haruka, he probably didn’t mind carrying the heavy bag of rice, along with a basket that was soon filled to the brim, around the grocery store. Where a normal person would complain about it, Haruka just took each item added to the pile as a promise of another tasty dish and accepted it happily. And because it was Haruka, he probably didn’t notice the strange looks he was getting from a few different people who noticed that it was more than the average person would be carrying so easily.

He didn’t miss the way that Takane kept glancing towards Haruka’s eyes, as if making sure that they weren’t straining him to the point where he needed to rely on his ability. But they remained dark the entire time, and in the end, she said nothing about it. So Shintaro didn’t say anything either, and before long, they had made it back to the base without incident.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous about buying groceries,” he mumbled as he sat down on the couch.

“That’s because you never do it.” Takane sat down next to him, and he shot her a glare.

“Hey, do you think I don’t make any food at all? I live on my own, you know!”

“Yeah, in a _dorm_. You can just go to the dining hall and have someone cook for you.”

“I don’t do that every day!”

“Of course not, because some days Shintaro forgets to eat.”

This was kind of nostalgic, though if Shintaro were being honest, it was the kind of nostalgia he could do without. Rather than press the point, he gave a sigh and sunk a little more into the couch. Arguing with Takane was almost never worth it, anyway. She’d just continue thinking whatever she wanted.

The silence left behind in the wake of their squabble was soon replaced by the sound of Tsubomi cutting vegetables, and shortly afterwards, Haruka and Marry joined them in sitting and waiting.

“Ah, now I’m hungry, too.” Takane was pouting.

“I can’t wait to eat another one of Kido’s meals!” Marry clapped her hands together happily. “They always taste so wonderful. It feels like so long since I last had one!”

“Since I’m just starting now, it’s going to take a while,” Tsubomi warned from the kitchen. “I’ll probably need to make two batches of rice, too…” But somehow, she didn’t sound very annoyed when she said it.

In a way, Shintaro thought, it was nice to hang out together with them like this. Talking about inconsequential things like their lunch was a good way to keep them from dwelling on the truth of the situation around them. Takane _had_ said what they were all thinking, after all. At this point, half of them were dead, and maybe all of them were going to end up the same way. And if history was any indication, it was pretty likely that it would be all. How much had Marry been suffering these past couple days? Had she had nothing but those terrible pictures to keep her company?

Despite the warning, an hour seemed to slip by quickly, and soon Tsubomi was setting out five place settings. “Sorry that it’s so late. Honestly, I wasn’t quite sure if I was making a late lunch or an early dinner…”

“Lunch, definitely!” Haruka said enthusiastically. “If this is lunch, then you’ll also make dinner for us later, right?”

“Yeah… I guess so.” She chuckled and returned to the kitchen to start bringing out the food dishes.

“Ah… the tournament…” Shintaro turned to find Takane staring up at the clock. He looked up as well to find it had somehow become almost 4. After a few seconds, she lowered her gaze. “Guess… it’s probably stupid to want to go back, right? If we’re not splitting up…”

“That’s right, I nearly forgot! Takane’s bracket is tonight, isn’t it? If you don’t show up, won’t you get disqualified?!”

She gave a glare in Haruka’s direction, but somehow it seemed to be more sad than angry. “Well, yeah, that’s how it goes! Ah… but it’d be really stupid to go just to get killed. Not like I can win any tournaments when I’m dead. So… guess I’m forfeiting this one.”

A silence followed, broken only by the sound of Tsubomi arranging dishes. Finally Takane gave a loud shout, sudden enough that Marry let out a quick ‘eep!’ and jumped.

“Argh! I was gonna kick all their asses, too! What a way to lose my title. Haruka!”

This time, it was Haruka’s turn to jump, and she pointed angrily in his direction.

“If we’re in the clear to go back by the time the finals roll around, you’d better wipe the floor with all of them!”

“What are you being so noisy about?” Tsubomi brought out a pair of trays and placed them down, then turned to Takane.

“That tournament we’re here for. I’m supposed to play in the bracket tonight, but…” she sighed. “That plan’s out.”

“Well, what time do you have to get there?”

“Huh?” She looked up at Tsubomi, a blank look on her face.

“What time do you have to get there? If we all go together, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Takane glanced at the clock, and then at Haruka. “Hey… how long did the first round go last night?”

“Ah… hmm. Definitely, I think it was still going at 9, but I don’t remember how long after that…”

“Wait, 9? That’s really late for a tournament,” Shintaro pointed out.

“Yeah. This one’s gimmick is something like ‘Up All Night Dead Bullet’, so the tournament part starts at 6… It’s kind of stupid, but the prize is pretty big, so it got a lot of attention and there’s a bunch of entries and such.”

To Shintaro, such a thing sounded like an excuse to not have to cool the building during the daytime hours.

“Anyway, it might be okay if I can just get there before the first round ends. They don’t actually have to decide a winner for my match until that point, so, maybe, they’d be willing to hold my match last… Ah, that would mean I’d probably want to leave here by 7…” She looked up suddenly. “If… the rest of you are alright with coming, I guess.”

“This is the game that Ene is really good at, right? I want to see!” Marry responded excitedly.

“H… hey, do you have any idea what the game is like? You might find it really scary…”

“I’m sure Marry will be fine! It’s not bad at all once you get used to it,” Haruka said.

“I don’t mind going,” Tsubomi chimed in.

Takane slowly turned to Shintaro as if daring him to complain, and he made a low sound of frustration. “It’s not like I’m going to say no if everyone else is going, so don’t give me that look.” Even if it was the sort of thing that would probably scare him most of all, though he’d never admit such a thing out loud, especially around Takane.

“Then it’s decided. Well, it’s probably a better distraction than staying here all night, anyway. In the meantime, I worked really hard to get this meal done quickly for all of you, so please enjoy it.”

 

* * *

 

It was good that they had done the extra shopping, since Haruka managed to eat almost as much as the rest of them combined. Some things never changed.

“I still have no idea how you’re not fat,” Takane mumbled as she finished off the last of her vegetables, glancing up as Haruka started his fourth or fifth bowl of rice.

“Well, it’s metabolism,” he managed to get out between mouthfuls. “Bodies process foods at different rates, so—”

“I didn’t actually mean that! Geeze, give me a bit of credit here.”

“Your metabolism is still pretty crazy, Haruka.”

“I suppose so.” Was he halfway through that bowl already? “But I’ve always eaten this much, right? Even before. So I don’t think it’s related to anything strange.”

“I wouldn’t say _that_ … It might not be _our_ strange, but it’s still weird.”

Marry looked up from her half-finished dishes. “I don’t think it’s strange at all. I don’t eat a lot, and Konoha eats a whole lot. It’s like the same thing.”

Shintaro considered that for a moment. “It’s different, though. Haruka’s completely human. Er, _was_ completely human, at least. As far as we knew. Though I’d guess whatever he is now is still pretty human, too. Anyway, it’s not normal for humans to eat that much, or as little as you do, Marry.”

She seemed to be pouting. Well, it was true.

“Still, it must be pretty inconvenient to have to buy so much food all the time. I don’t mind doing it too much, but if Kokonose has to do it for every meal…”

“You have _no_ idea, ugh. Every restaurant near where we live with an all-you-can-eat option has started charging him extra for it! The nerve of them...”

“But if we’re getting more food, we should pay for it, right?”

“See?! And that’s how they get away with it! Haruka just lets them walk all over him!” Takane crossed her arms and sat back, done with her meal. “All-you-can-eat should mean _all-you-can-eat_. If they can’t handle one person eating as much as three, then that’s their problem!”

“If he’s eating as much as three, isn’t it reasonable to charge him as if he’s three people?”

“No, because he’s still one person!”

“… You just don’t want to have to pay, don’t you?”

She glared at Shintaro. “It’s a question of fairness!”

“What isn’t fair is you two using all-you-can-eat deals to sneak around not paying for Haruka’s ridiculous appetite. Even with the extra charge, you’re probably still getting a bargain, right?”

“H-hey, don’t make it sound like we’re stealing or something like that…!”

* * *

 

Shintaro suddenly glanced up at the clock. “Ah. It’s quarter of 7.”

“Already?” Takane looked up too, as if she hadn’t entirely believed him. “Wow… that went by fast. We should get going.”

One by one they stood up. Marry moved first, making a few steps back towards her room before pausing. “Are we going to be out for a while?”

“Huh? Well… yeah, probably. It goes for hours, so it’ll probably be really late by the time things are done.”

“I’ll get my coat, then! In case it gets too cold…”

She disappeared into her room, and when she emerged several seconds later, she was wearing her white hoodie around her shoulders and pulled up over her head.

“… You know it’s the middle of summer, right?”

“It can still get cold at night!” She pulled her hood down further as if protecting it, and Shintaro rolled his eyes.

“Just let her wear it. She’ll have to carry it if she gets too hot, anyway.”

He turned to toss a look in Tsubomi’s direction. “And then if she gets too tired, _I’ll_ have to carry _her_. I know how this goes.”

Tsubomi gave him a strange look in response.

“I can carry her, Shintaro!”

He was going to say something, and instead decided it wasn’t worth it. If Haruka was willing to volunteer, he wasn’t going to argue at all. After all, Haruka was probably the best suited for that sort of thing, without Kosuke around…

“Hey, Shintaro! Are you done complaining? Let’s go already!” Takane was already halfway out the door, glaring at him. He stared back for a second, then sighed and stood up to make his way out with the rest of them.

Soon they were back outside, and though the sun was only just starting to set, already the temperature seemed to have dropped a degree or two. Shintaro glanced at his phone, not quite sure what he was checking, but the 6:49 time it informed him of meant they could probably make it to the train station by 7.

His mother hadn’t bothered trying to email him, so most likely, there wasn’t anything new about Momo.

Well, not that that would be news he wanted to deal with right now.

The way to the train station cut through the nearby park. Though it was a much more amiable temperature than before, there were still fewer people around than there had been in the afternoon. Probably, since this space wasn’t used for any Obon festivities, everyone was off at that sort of thing. Tsubomi seemed to still be using her ability as she led the rest of the group, but Shintaro thought it probably wasn’t necessary. Though maybe, Marry still looked strange enough to attract some attention. Or maybe it was just a habit of hers.

“Hey, Commander.” He moved a bit faster to catch up to her.

She turned around at the sound of Shintaro calling out to her, but rather than look at him, her gaze seemed to stop and focus on something over his shoulder. Her eyes went wide and she gasped sharply.

“ _Kisa—!!”_

But he didn’t even hear the rest of his name as a loud, sharp noise pierced through the air. He was on the ground before he even realized it, his entire head suddenly in pain. There were words yelled around him, but it sounded like they were coming from underwater. Shintaro tried to lift his arms to push himself back up, but they wouldn’t respond. His whole body felt cold, and the world faded out just as he started to see red leaking along the ground into the edge of his vision.

When he opened his eyes, the red turned out to be the gray of his pillow. The hazy, echoing sound of voices had turned into a strange rattling. In his exhaustion, his limbs felt hard to move.

Probably, he hadn’t slept long enough yet. He still felt really tired.

The bed beneath him gave a sudden shake and a clattering sound drew his attention enough to get him to actually investigate. He rolled over and lifted his head to see what the noise had been to discover his phone’s charging station had tipped over.

He could just barely reach it from the bed, so without pulling himself out from under his covers, Shintaro stretched out and set it upright, even as the rattling continued around him, and glanced at the clock.

The morning of August 14 began soon after 3 AM with an earthquake.

* * *

 

“Shintaro? Are you up yet?”

The voice of his mother drifted through the closed door, and Shintaro pulled his covers over his head as if that would make it go away. He’d gone to bed at a reasonable time, but somehow it felt as if he hadn’t slept well at all. Rather, it felt like he’d had a really bad dream, though he couldn’t recall more than small pieces of it.

“Shintaro?”

“—’m up,” he mumbled, not loud enough, and a couple seconds later sat up and threw the covers off his body. “I’m up.” Loud enough for her to hear this time.

“You should check to see if anything in your room broke last night. After that, could you come help me clean up downstairs?”

“Sure…”

Shintaro dragged himself out of bed and started taking stock of the things disrupted by the earthquake. Though plenty was in disarray, nothing seemed to be entirely broken, though his closet was probably more of a mess than it should have been.

He changed his clothes and went to grab his phone, only to discover he’d received a text while he was asleep.

“Sorry! I tried to get my manager to pull some strings but she wouldn’t budge! >o< Guess I really won’t see my brother at all this summer, huh? ;o;”

He stared at the screen for several long seconds. Hadn’t Momo already told him she couldn’t get a ticket? … No, looking back through their conversation, she hadn’t told him such a thing yet. So maybe he was just projecting his cynicism onto her. Either way, he sent her a quick reply, then pocketed his phone as he went downstairs.

The first thing to catch his eye was a large garbage bag in the entryway. He approached it and noticed a few cracked dishes peeking out the top; when he poked his head into the kitchen, sure enough, most of their cupboards were open and far less occupied than they’d been the day before. His mother had her back to him as she bent over, sweeping up some of the smaller shards into a separate bag that was still mostly empty.

He left her to that work and instead focused on the living room, which it looked like she hadn’t managed to touch yet. One bookshelf was completely toppled over and most of the others had lost the majority of their contents. All the photos on the table were tipped over, and the ones on the wall that hadn’t fallen were now crooked.

With a soft groan, he pushed the bookshelf back upright and stared at the pile of books on the floor for a few seconds. He couldn’t quite complain that they were all his mother’s, since she’d bought most of them for him, but he’d always read them just once and then he’d be done with them. She was the one who kept them around, instead of doing something reasonable like selling them back, even though she read them so rarely herself. Over the years the collection had somehow grown to be quite large, and all of that culminated here and now with this ridiculous pile at his feet.

Well, the longer he stared at it, the longer it was going to take.

Shintaro didn’t bother sorting the books as he grabbed them from the pile and shoved them back on the shelf in some haphazard order. If his mother cared, she’d do it later, when they were done picking up the entire mess and dealing with the broken glass in the corner. For now, getting things off the floor was enough.

At some point he reached down, and what he grabbed from the pile wasn’t a book at all. It was a frame, and when he turned it over, he discovered it wasn’t empty.

He found himself looking at the commemoration photo, from when he and Ayano began high school together. It was a photo he hadn’t seen since it had disappeared after the news of her suicide. He didn’t think his mother had thrown it out, but now that he thought back on it, it should have seemed pretty strange that even after he’d started coming out of his room again that he’d never stumbled across it. Had his mother kept it here so that she could look at it without him discovering it himself?

The two of them were only fifteen back then.

Shintaro’s gaze was drawn to Ayano’s smile, and after a moment, a memory came back to him. Back when she’d killed herself, when she was lying on the ground…

… No. That wasn’t right. He’d… never been there when she’d jumped, had he? Not once, not in any of the loops. And… even if he had, surely, surely there would have been blood. She wouldn’t have just been laying there as if she were asleep, with no mess or anything…

What was he remembering, then?

“Shintaro?”

The sound of his mother’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts suddenly enough that he jumped, startling and dropping the frame. It hit the ground with a shattering noise, and Shintaro froze. He stared at the broken glass for several moments, then slowly looked up. “S… sorry. I’ll… clean that up. Uh, what is it?”

“No, I’ll get it. I was about to vacuum anyway. Do you think you can take the garbage bag out, though? There’s an emergency trash pickup in less than half an hour, thanks to the earthquake. The site is just a couple streets over, so it shouldn’t take long.”

“Yeah, sure… —Wait…” He turned to the window, actually processing the large, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say excessive, amount of sunlight that seemed to be gracing the world outside the house. But, ah… he’d already agreed, sort of, and besides, being an adult meant he was probably supposed to do these sorts of things, right? Right. At his age, making his mother do everything herself would be downright cruel. Even if making him go outside was cruel as well. “Ah… alright. Fine.”

* * *

 

He could only barely remember where the trash was supposed to go, and took far too winding a route to reach it, but it was with a bit of satisfaction that Shintaro finally dropped the garbage bag with a large collection of similar shapes. He gave a sigh and stretched, glanced up at the sky, and turned.

… Wasn’t there someone behind him? It seemed somehow strange that the street at his back was vacant, even though now that Shintaro thought about it, he hadn’t heard any footsteps or anything like that. Maybe it was just shadows moving in the corner of his eye that had given him the impression of being followed, though that explanation didn’t sit right with him, either.

Anyway, there was no one there now, and now that he was done with his chore he could get back to the air conditioned house. But the walk back might still take a few minutes and he seemed to recall a group of vending machines being around here, though he’d only been to them once a while ago. Well, grabbing a soda before he headed back home was probably a good idea anyway. It would be a nice reward for surviving this oppressive August heat.

Once he got back home, he wouldn’t need to worry about going outside again.

* * *

 

_It smelled of blood._

_It reeked of blood._

_The air was heavy with it; it permeated the entire park; it was so overwhelming that she felt like she was going to be sick._

_That blood was Haruka’s._

_That blood was Takane’s._

_That blood was Tsubomi’s._

_That blood was Shintaro’s._

_Dead._

**_Dead._ **

**_Everyone was dead._ **

_“If you love them…”_

_The words started in her head. She already had her hands to her ears, she was already wailing, but they cut through all that and reached straight to her mind._

_The gun on the ground, dropped as the snake took her final friend away._

_The picture of Hibiya, lying in a pool of blood._

_The picture of Shuuya, face down in the water._

_The picture of Ayano, sprawled on the ground._

_The picture of Momo, crushed._

_The picture of Kosuke, hit by a truck._

_She sobbed and covered her ears, trying to drown out the reality that wasn’t going away with just her noises. They were all dead. All the people she loved were dead._

_“Use your monstrous power.”_

_She never stopped wailing. She didn’t want those words in her mind. She hated the one who had twisted this world and taken her friends away, but of all the powers she had, she didn’t have the power to make it disappear. All she could do…_

_All she could do was…_

_“Ah, isn’t that mean of you, my queen? After all, this was all to grant your wish.”_

_This wasn’t her wish. She wanted to say it, to scream it, but no words came to her. Just the unending sound of her own voice tumbling out with no change and no end._

_The world twisted around her. Time itself twisted around her, warping and reversing, going backwards to before the first terrible image ever appeared before her eyes. Maybe if they tried again, they could fix this. If they tried again, she could still be with all of them._

_All she could do was use her monstrous power._


	8. ブラックリーズン – Black Reason

Even the one hour felt like far too much, and by the time everyone was wrapping up their assignments, Tsubomi was certain the inside of the classroom had managed to become even hotter than the air outside. Not that she wasn’t used to heat when she cooked, but there was a difference between being alone in the kitchen, or maybe with a helper or two, and the fifteen or so students all cooking at the same time with one stove apiece.

She wiped the sweat from her brow as she finished packaging up her little batch of snacks, then looked up at the classroom around her. “If anyone needs a bit of extra help, I’m done early.” Though it was supposed to be an independent assignment, the main point was to cook food to be sold at a festival booth that was to be set up near the university’s campus, so it was more important for everyone to finish than for it to be done without assistance from others.

“Ah, Kido, in that case, can you come over here?”

Normally she’d be surprised that anyone other than the instructors had so much as learned her name, but since the cooking class was one that she particularly excelled at, it wasn’t surprising that some of the others might have remembered her. Although, she could only remember the first sound of the name of the girl who had asked for help, and it made her feel a little guilty. “Sure. What do you need?”

It was harder to properly tie the packaging with food that hadn’t been cooked as carefully as she’d managed, so what little bit of time remained Tsubomi spent helping the other girl bundle up treats that tried to fall apart on them as they wrapped them. Ah, it would have been easier if she’d just cooked them properly in the first place, but it was a little too late for that now.

“Whoa! Even when they came out messy, Kido makes the package look so neat!”

“Ah… thanks. But it’s not like yours look bad, either.”

“No, but you can still kind of see, right? When _you_ wrap them up, I almost can’t even tell!”

She wasn’t quite sure how to deal with the praise.

Even so, it took longer to get them right, and soon most of the rest of the class had already left, having put their treats on the cart which would bring everything outside later. Finally the two of them were done, and Tsubomi followed her to deposit theirs with the rest.

“Hey, Kido, your first name is Tsubomi, isn’t it? I usually don’t remember that sort of thing, but I remembered hearing yours and thinking it was really pretty!” More praise she didn’t know what to do with.

“Um… yeah, that’s right. Thanks. I… don’t think I remember your name, though… sorry.” It started with ‘ta’, though. Probably.

“Takabashi! Rie Takabashi. It’s nothing special, but you can call me ‘Rie’ if you’d like.” Rie slid the door open, and even from behind her, Tsubomi felt the rush of cool air hit her, and she startled just a little. “Aah! That feels so nice!”

“It does. It got so hot in there we probably should have opened some windows. Even though it’s so hot outside…”

She followed the other girl out into the hallway.

“Say, did you have any plans after class?”

Tsubomi shook her head. “Not really. Since it’s Obon, I usually get together with friends, but I’m not sure if this year—”

“Tsubomi?”

Tsubomi paused as Rie cut her off, then turned around in confusion. Her gaze didn’t focus on her. Rather, it looked more like she was looking right past Tsubomi. Right through…

She froze in an instinctive panic that she thought had been left behind many years ago, but before she could react, Rie started to head back into the classroom. “Hey, where did you—eek?!” She bumped right into Tsubomi and jumped, startled. “Whoa—ah—when did you get there?! Geeze, you nearly gave me a heart attack!”

She seemed to be trying to play it off for laughs, but Tsubomi’s eyes had already gone wide. Rie started to turn away, but Tsubomi quickly grabbed her arm.

“Rie!” She took a deep breath. “This is going to sound like a strange question, but what color are my eyes right now?”

“Huh? Why would they be any different than their usual…?” But she trailed off there, her own eyes going wide in surprise. That expression was all Tsubomi needed to see to know. There wasn’t anything ‘usual’ about the red eyes that Rie was staring into right now.

Not the red eyes that seemed more like they should belong to a monster than any human.

“… Never mind. Forget I asked.” She let go of Rie and started to move past her, but this time Rie was the one to grab _her_ arm.

“Hey, Tsubomi…?”

No choice, huh?

She pulled her arm free and suddenly pointed down the hallway. Luckily for her the distraction worked, and for a fraction of a second, Rie turned to look the direction Tsubomi was pointing and away from her. That fraction of a second was all she needed.

The moment Rie turned away she took off in the other direction, escaping under the protection of her ability once again. The ability she hadn’t had for four years. But there were no footsteps chasing her, so all she could really conclude was that Rie wasn’t able to follow.

Four years later, her red eyes had come back to her. _Somehow._

Surely the reason wasn’t anything good.

 

* * *

 

Kosuke didn’t answer his phone.

Shuuya didn’t, either.

Neither did Ayano.

Nor Momo.

She was rapidly running out of people to call. Tsubomi looked through her contacts, trying to figure out who would be most likely to actually pick up. Well, it had been so long since she’d spoken to Takane or Haruka. Hibiya… seemed kind of unlikely.

… Well, if Shintaro didn’t pick up, she could always try someone else. Again.

Luckily, it seemed she’d finally landed on someone who would actually answer their phone.

“Uh… hey. Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“Hi. Um… is your sister there?”

“Ah, no. She’s… out on tour right now, though actually she’s in this city for a couple days. Did you try calling her?”

“I did.” Why did this conversation feel so awkward? “Say, Kisaragi. About what happened four years ago. Can you talk right now?”

“Yeah. Wait, let me shut my door, first…” There was the sound of shuffling, and then a door latching closed. “Alright. What’s up?”

“My ability is back. I was hoping to figure out if it was the same for everyone, but…”

“Ah, so that’s why you called Momo… right.” Not to insult Shintaro, but would he even know if his ability had returned? Tsubomi didn’t think so, but from the tone of his voice, Shintaro seemed to understand her thoughts. “How about the others?”

“About that… you’re the first one to answer the phone. So I don’t know about anyone else yet.”

“Hm? What about Shuuya?”

“Didn’t pick up. Why?”

An awkward silence followed her question. “I’m… not sure. Somehow, it felt like maybe he would know for certain…”

“… Kisaragi.” Her voice went serious. “Do you think you could be remembering strange things?”

“… Ah.” Silence followed that too, this time dragging out long enough that she started to get impatient. But finally, a heavy sigh came through the line. “No good, huh. It’s… possible, I guess. But even if it’s true, it’s not enough to be useful. I don’t… _feel_ like I’m remembering anything. Besides… remembering new things would mean…”

He trailed off there, and neither of them needed that sentence completed. Shintaro had already told all of them four years ago exactly what it would mean.

“Do you have a plan?”

Tsubomi paused. “I… don’t. For now, I thought it would be enough to get my bearings, but with most everyone not replying, I’m not sure where things really stand, you know?”

Shintaro made a low noise through the phone. “Where are you right now?”

“… My room. Ah… at the university. Why?”

“That’s not too far from where I live, right? Do you mind taking me to Shuuya’s place? There’s something I want to confirm with him.”

“What sort of something?”

Shintaro gave a wry chuckle. “I’m not sure yet. But I get the feeling that I’ll know once I see him.”

* * *

 

It felt perhaps a bit childish, but Tsubomi couldn’t help the way that her old hoodie brought back a feeling of nostalgia when she put it on. Though she had donned it from time to time after losing her power, it somehow felt like she’d graduated from wearing it. Like an old school uniform, it was put on to bring back old memories, but soon was followed by the pain of the loss of the happy days it now symbolized.

But the red eyes she had once so desperately hid from the world were back, so she appropriately concealed them beneath the hood she had been given all those years ago. It wasn’t that she was afraid anymore, really, but it seemed like the sort of thing that should still be kept from those around her as much as possible.

She found Shintaro waiting for her on the train platform, and since it seemed that it wasn’t busy enough that they wouldn’t find themselves being crowded on the train, she concealed him with her ability rather than drop the effect on herself as she walked up next to him.

“Kisaragi.”

He startled and jerked his head in her direction. “H-hey, don’t sneak up like that!” But then he seemed to get his bearings, and she didn’t miss the way his gaze flicked to her hood and his eyes narrowed for a moment. Well, it wasn’t like he was in a position to judge; he was wearing a red jacket that looked like it might even be the same one he had back when they had first met, after all. “Anyway… how far is it from here?”

“Almost an hour away. There’s only one line that goes out that way and the transfers are all kind of inconvenient, so it’s sometimes easier to just walk. But, given that it’s this hot…” They’d definitely want the air conditioning of the trains.

Shintaro seemed to think so, too. “Why does he live in such an inconvenient place…?”

“He says it’s good for his work, or something. Plus, the rent’s pretty low, even though that’s not something he needs to worry about. I think…”

She trailed off there. Shintaro watched her for a couple seconds, then shifted a little. “… What?”

“… No, it’s… Ah, I think maybe he likes the inconvenience. That sort of thing.”

Shuuya had been the first one of them to move out. Maybe that wasn’t unexpected. Shuuya had always been a little more distant than any of the rest of them. And besides, he seemed to be the best at picking himself up, dusting off, and going forwards. Though it seemed to sometimes get him into trouble, she couldn’t say it wasn’t a strength she admired.

She thought that he might have deliberately chosen a place where he couldn’t make it back to them quickly, though whose benefit he had done that for, she wasn’t sure.

“This is a heck of an inconvenience to do just for the fun of it…”

“Well… I’m sure he has more reasons than just that.”

“If he doesn’t, he’s paying me back for this trip.” The train started to pull into the platform, and Shintaro glanced her way, catching sight of her eyes. “… You’re going to keep that up?”

“If I do, we can talk freely. And it’s not like it’s crowded at this time of day on this line.”

“Yeah, but we have to dodge people—” and practically on cue, a man stepped off the train from the door right in front of Shintaro, who had to shuffle to the side to avoid getting hit in the shoulder. “… Like that. Don’t you find it annoying?”

“I’d gotten used to it.”

He was making an unpleasant face at her.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Shintaro looked away, moving onto the train as an excuse for not answering right away. Finally he settled against the opposite doors and glanced back at her. “Suit yourself.”

* * *

 

In the end she’d stopped using her ability, so they wound up passing most of the trip in silence. When it was finally time to get off the train, Shintaro glanced around awkwardly, as if taking stock of the station and the neighborhood around it.

“Doesn’t this place feel a little…?”

“Yeah, a little. But I’ve never had anything happen, so probably, it’s not actually that bad. Shuuya said you just need to stay out of the way of the yakuza and you’ll be fine, and they’re easy to spot.”

“…” Shintaro looked a little disconcerted at that.

“Should I go back to using my ability?”

“Please.”

Not that she really blamed him. Her first few times in Shuuya’s neighborhood, she had certainly found herself wishing for the protection that hiding afforded her.

The ten minute walk was uneventful, and soon the two of them were climbing the narrow staircase of an apartment complex that gave an impression that it wasn’t too well maintained. Tsubomi led Shintaro to a door on the fourth floor. “Well, this is it.” Her eyes went dark again as she raised a hand and knocked on the door. “Shuuya? It’s Tsubomi!”

Shintaro went for the doorbell before she could speak up.

“Doesn’t work.”

But he realized that before the words had finished making their ways out of her mouth.

She sighed and knocked louder. “Shuuya?”

“Is he out? Or maybe asleep…”

“He should be up by this time. I guess he could be out, but in that case I’d expect him to answer his cell…” She took her phone out of her pocket and called his number again. The dial tone started in her ear, and a couple seconds later, Shintaro’s eyes went wide.

He pressed his ear to the door. “Hey… I think I hear it ringing.”

“So he’s in there? Ugh, maybe he _is_ asleep…” Tsubomi hung up, and this time she knocked even harder on the door. “Hey, Shuuya!”

There was still no response.

She sighed and placed a hand on the doorknob. “Sorry. Looks like we came all this way for noth…” But she trailed off as she put a bit of pressure on the knob, and it response, it started to turn. “… Huh?”

“He forgot to lock it?”

“… No. Shuuya of anyone wouldn’t forget to…” But sure enough, it turned the rest of the way in her hand, and the door opened with a click.

Something wasn’t right here.

“Shuuya?” Tsubomi pushed the door open and stepped in. The curtain on the only window was drawn shut and the lights were off, leaving the only source of brightness the open door behind them. She looked around for a moment before her eyes were drawn downwards by something in the corner of her vision. She froze too fast to even make a noise.

There was blood on the floor. Blood, and a body.

“Hey, don’t just stand there in the way…” Shintaro moved into the entryway behind her, cramping the small space, and pulled the door shut, plunging the room into darkness to their eyes which were used to the bright sun outside.

“… Kisaragi?”

“What? Come on, get your shoes off already so we can—H-hey, what’re you—?”

He cut off as she stepped up onto the floor, shoes and all. Now wasn’t the sort of time where she was thinking about things like that. “Don’t scream.” She’d managed to keep the panic out of her voice, but her distress still made it through.

“Huh? Why would I scream?”

The light switch was a short ways into the apartment, so she had to take those few steps, shoes and all, before her fingers found the switch and she flipped it.

To his credit, Shintaro didn’t scream either, though he did take in a sharp breath and make a weird almost-squeak of a noise. With the overhead light, the scene before them came into sharp, gruesome clarity.

It was Shuuya. She’d known it was Shuuya, from the moment she’d spotted the mess of blonde hair dyed a browning red on one side, but with the light on the details of his face were there to confirm it. He was lying on the floor, the pool of blood surrounding his head and shoulders already stale and drying in the August heat that permeated the room. The back of his head was completely stained in that terrible color. His eyes were open, but empty. The smell of blood itself was already pretty faint; probably, the window was open behind the curtain, and it had been long enough for the air to circulate out. Even still, Tsubomi felt her stomach turning.

“No…”

It was Shintaro who spoke, and she turned to him to find his eyes were bright red. “Kisaragi…?”

“This is… wrong. Shuuya… shouldn’t be dead yet. He wasn’t killed until tonight. He was… He drowned. He drowns tonight. He’s not…” Suddenly the red vanished, and Shintaro startled, lifting his head to stare into space as he continued. “Wait… come back. Come back! What else am I supposed to see here?! I know that can’t be all of it, dammit! You’re supposed to help me! I…!”

He trailed off, and Tsubomi put a hand on his shoulder. He was shaking. … No, wait. He wasn’t the one who was shaking. She was. “I-if you can’t control your ability…” Her voice was unsteady, breaking, but she kept speaking anyway. Anything to keep her mind off the body on the floor beside her. “Forcing it i-isn’t going to do you any g-good. Getting worked up will probably just do the…” her voice cracked, and she swallowed and continued. “… the opposite of what you want.”

“Tsubomi… Hey, are you okay?”

“Okay?” She repeated it, and when she lifted her head to look at Shintaro’s face, tears were already threatening to fall. “How can I be okay? Shuuya’s… Shuuya’s dead. He’s right behind me and he’s _dead_. Why… Why the hell…? Ah…”

She was just barely holding them back. No, this wasn’t what she was supposed to do. She’d been their commander, right? She was supposed to be strong. She was the one who kept the rest of them going.

“Stupid… you’re not supposed to die…!”

Shintaro moved past her to slowly, carefully walk around the small apartment. Tsubomi turned to watch him numbly. Every time he looked towards Shuuya, he cringed, but he kept doing it anyway between glances at the room around them. It was like he was looking for something.

“… What are you doing?”

“… Trying to find anything that might help us. Anything…” He glanced towards the covered window on the back wall. It was large enough for a person to fit through, but not by much. Beyond that, though, there would be the issue of how someone would get up to the fourth floor in the first place, if they had entered that way.

Shintaro turned back to the body, and when he spoke, it was with the tone of someone who was only realizing something for the first time.

“… He was _shot_.”

“Huh? Well… yeah, of course he was.”

“No, that’s… that’s the strange thing here. Last time…” Shintaro pressed a hand to his head and made a frustrated noise, squinting, but if he was trying to activate his ability it didn’t work. “Last time, he wasn’t shot. I don’t… remember who was. Someone was. But it wasn’t Shuuya. Who…” he raised his gaze to Tsubomi. “Who in the Mekakushi Dan would possibly be able to get a gun quickly?”

She winced, gaze falling to the floor. “… Shuuya had one.”

“Wha…?! Why the _hell_ would he have a gun?! How?!”

“I don’t know!” She could feel herself getting upset again, and she took a deep breath. “He pretended he didn’t have one, even though I saw it with my own eyes once. So he wouldn’t tell me even when I asked. But… this was exactly what I was afraid of…!”

Shintaro sighed. “That means… the gun isn’t even a clue at all. Or, I guess… well. Probably, whoever killed him managed to come in without arousing his suspicion. Then they got ahold of his gun, and shot him with it… It’s possible that there’s another gun instead, I guess.” He glanced around the room. “Where did he keep it?”

“… I don’t know. Like I said, he wouldn’t tell me anything about it, so…” Shintaro made a frustrated noise, and Tsubomi’s stomach turned again. “Sorry to ask this, but… can we leave? I can’t… stay here.”

Not with Shuuya’s body lying at her feet like this.

Shintaro hesitated for a few too many seconds, and finally Tsubomi headed for the door without him. Her words came out no louder than a whisper. “I’ll wait for you outside.”

Back out in the hallway, she leaned out over the balcony and looked at the street below, trying to get the smell of blood out of her nose. The sunlight and heat felt far too cruel, and she pulled her hoodie as far over her face as it would go. Too many possibilities raced through her mind and she wanted to shove all of them away. If Shintaro was remembering things, then time had been rewound once more, hadn’t it? And now Shuuya was dead… so what about Kosuke? Or Ayano, or Momo? Who simply hadn’t picked up their phone, and who would never be able to pick up their phone again? What about the rest of them? Were Takane and Haruka in danger as well? Was Hibiya? Would Marry know how to contact her if anything happened?

… She had to know. She at least had to know what she could.

With shaking hands, she took out her phone and found the first name in her contacts list.

The dial tone seemed to stretch on forever.

“Uh… hello?”

At the sound of Hibiya’s voice, Tsubomi felt tears finally start to slide down her cheeks. “Thank goodness… At least one of you is still alive…”

“H—huh?! What the hell are you—Who is this?!”

“It’s Tsubomi. Tsubomi Kido… ah.” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and sniffled a little before continuing. “From the Mekakushi Dan. I… Ah, where do I even start…”

“Kido… like, Commander Kido, right?” Even though it had been so long, it seemed Hibiya still remembered at least a bit.

“Yeah. I… Hibiya, listen. Something strange is going on… Shintaro and I both have our abilities back. You… probably would have yours as well, I’d think. I bet we all do.”

“Eh?! Hey, if I have it, then I could—!”

“The ability isn’t what’s important right now,” she cut him off to continue, her voice threatening to lose its steadiness again. “Shuuya’s dead. Kano. Kano’s dead. We don’t know who did it, but… I think things are getting bad again. Bad like before. So, you need to be careful…”

“Dead?” He repeated the word incredulously. “Like… actually dead?”

“… Yeah.” Ah, her voice broke a little. “Actually dead.”

Silence met her words, and she took another deep breath as quietly as she could.

“Just… like I said, be careful, okay? We’re still trying to figure out what’s going on, but it’s possible you’re in danger, too. Keep your eyes open.”

“Hey, uh, Commander…” Hibiya made a soft noise before continuing. “Do you think… Hiyori would be in danger, too? I know she’s not quite like us, but she still got involved, right? So, maybe…”

Tsubomi considered for a moment. “I can’t really say for certain, until we learn more. Do you want me to call her?”

He made another noise. “Don’t bother trying. I’m going to go figure something out on my own. But definitely let me know if you learn any more yourself, okay?!”

“Hey—Hibiya, you’re not going to do anything rash, right?”

“‘Course not. Talk to you later!”

He hung up before she could say anything more.

… Not that she particularly trusted him not to be reckless, but he’d hopefully at least matured some over the years, and there wasn’t much she could do to stop him besides. Hopefully he at least took her warning seriously enough, though she maybe should have at least told him about the gun as well. Well, the gun wouldn’t matter if he was still back home. Then again, the snake had nearly killed all of them last time without using the gun anyway, so even if she had mentioned such a thing…

“Ah, that’s right.”

Tsubomi still had another pair of calls to make.

The next name on the list she hoped at least would pick up. If nothing else, she was almost certainly still alive… or so Tsubomi would like to think. But she couldn’t help the way her heartbeat picked up the longer the phone continued to ring. Surely, of all people…?!

“This had better be important…”

At the voice in the phone, Tsubomi let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. “… I wouldn’t have called otherwise. Enomoto…” She paused for a moment. “Have you spoken to Kokonose at all today?”

“Huh? Haruka’s right next to me. Why?”

Just hearing that set her a little more at ease. “I’ve been trying to reach everyone. Since… there’s no good way to say this. Our powers are back, and, Shuuya’s dead.”

“Ah, that… Eh… W-wait, did you say _dead?!”_

She nodded, though such a thing wouldn’t make it through the phone. “And, since it’s really suspicious, I’ve been trying to contact everyone…”

“Oh. Right, I get you… huh. That’s… Somehow, it’s really unsettling, isn’t it?” A voice that sounded like it might be Haruka’s said something too soft for Tsubomi to understand, but she only managed to pick up Takane’s response of, “I’ll tell you in a bit.”

“It is. And on top of that, most of the group isn’t answering their phones… so I have no idea who is okay or not. Just you and Kokonose, Kisaragi—ah, Shintaro, and Hibiya…”

“Shintaro? Well, maybe it’s good that he’s at least alright…” She somehow sounded unhappy when she said it.

“Probably. And his ability has activated itself already, so… well, we know at least that this isn’t the first time for this.”

“E-eh?! So, then, doesn’t that make everything worse?! If we already died once— _I’ll tell you in a second!”_ She made a frustrated noise, but it’s not like Tsubomi could blame Haruka for the curiosity is seemed he had.

“Yeah. It makes everything worse. But, I don’t know what we can even do about it… since Shuuya’s already dead…” Ah, she felt like crying again.

“… A commander should be strong in front of her troops.” It seemed Takane could hear the distress in her voice. “But, hey. We’re still here for you, okay? And I’m sure Shintaro would be willing to help out in that stupid way of his. So… even if it hurts, you don’t need to cry around us.”

Somehow, it seemed, the words had made her feel better after all, even if this whole thing still felt overwhelming. “… Maybe. Ah… Enomoto, thanks. Thank you. I’ll… try to figure something out over here. The two of you should be careful… and let me know if anything happens. I’ll keep you informed about things on our end.”

“Right, right. I should probably tell Haruka, anyway. He’s been making this face at me for like a minute now. … Don’t you ‘huh?’ me! _That_ face—Alright, Commander, talk to you later!” And with that, Takane hung up on her.

Tsubomi glanced over her shoulder, but Shintaro was still inside, and after a moment, she brought her phone back to her ear.

It rang all the way through to the end, and Kosuke still didn’t answer. Well, not that it really meant anything for certain, but with what they’d discovered about Shuuya, it was disheartening. She lowered the phone and sighed. Tsubomi was about to try Ayano again just in case, but before she managed to make the call, there was the sound of a small ruckus behind her and the door to the apartment soon swung open.

“H-hey, you didn’t tell me you were going to call Takane!”

She turned, casting a slightly confused glance over her shoulder at Shintaro. “Well, I wanted to try to reach everyone I hadn’t called yet… Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?! Don’t you even understand what you’ve done?! Now that it’s come to this again, surely my life is going to go back to being hell…!”

“Come on, Master, it’s not _that_ bad!” All it took was the familiar voice coming from Shintaro’s phone, and suddenly Tsubomi realized just what it was that had him so worked up. Right, if Takane had her ability back, she could do that sort of thing again… “Besides, I didn’t realize the two of you were already together. And you had to go and show me something disgusting… You’re terrible, Master!”

“I was the one seeing it in person, you know!”

… There wasn’t anything they could be referring to but Shuuya’s corpse. But Shintaro seemed to notice the way Tsubomi’s eyes went wider at that realization, and he ducked his gaze a little and changed the subject.

“Anyway, you don’t even need to be here, right? Since it’s not like you’re stuck at all. Go back to Haruka or something.”

“Eh, Haruka’s playing practice matches to get ready for tonight’s tournament, so watching him was getting kind of boring anyway. And if I stay with you guys, there’s no need to update me later! So how about I just stick around instead?”

Shintaro grimaced, and his gaze flicked to Tsubomi’s phone, still visible in her hand. Possibly, he wanted Takane out of his phone badly enough that he was thinking she should go to Tsubomi’s, but even if that’s what he felt, he at least had the tact not to say it. “What point would there even be to that, in this sort of situation…?”

“Come on, you never know when I might be useful! And since your ability isn’t exactly doing much, I’m more useful than _you_ , Master.”

“Don’t say that like I’m not helping!” His gaze lifted from his phone to Tsubomi, and he gave a soft huff. “I… looked in a bunch of places, but I didn’t find a gun in any of them. I think… Shuuya might have been saying something about this, before he died last time. I still don’t remember it well, but… probably, that one snake has hidden himself in one of the Mekakushi Dan. If he’s doing that, it’s pretty likely that Shuuya let that person in, not realizing that anything was wrong…”

Tsubomi felt her heart starting ache all over again. “… So they got his gun somehow, and shot him with it, huh…? It… certainly seems like a reasonable chain events. Since Shuuya is always so careful…”

“Whoa—hold on, hold on! The brat owns a gun?!”

“Well, he _did_ , apparently. I couldn’t find one now.” Shintaro sighed heavily. “So, there’s a chance that things are already pretty bad… The only people you could reach, aside from me, are the ones who aren’t even in this city, right?”

Tsubomi hadn’t even realized it until Shintaro put it like that. “Wait… no. No, that can’t… There’s no way everyone else is already dead, right? That’s not what you’re saying, right?!”

“Commander, calm down!” Shintaro finally tilted his phone enough that she could see Takane’s avatar looking up at her. “Haruka and I are here, too, so it’s not even that what Master said was right in the first place. We’re both still alive just fine!”

“Wait, what are you two doing here?”

“Weren’t you listening earlier?! There’s a tournament! Since it’s Obon, Haruka doesn’t have class, so we both entered. I mean, we’re still some distance from the rest of you, but it’s not like we’re halfway across the country anymore.” They both stared down at her, eyes wide, and after a moment she tipped her head to the side and gave a flat look in response. “What’s with those expressions?”

“That means the two of you are in danger as well…”

“… Ah. You know, I hadn’t thought of that.” She went quiet for a moment. “Do you think that means… I should go back? I was going to let Haruka just go to the tournament on his own, but, maybe it’s better if we stick together…”

“Y-yes, definitely! You should definitely go with Haruka and make sure you both stay safe!” … He sounded far too enthusiastic about that, Tsubomi thought, and from her deadpan expression it seemed Takane thought the same.

But, it wasn’t like the idea itself was actually unreasonable. “… Actually, as much as I don’t want to say it after he put it in that sort of a way, I think I agree with Kisaragi. Since you’re already with Kokonose, it’s probably better to stay with him for the time being. You can watch each other’s backs, and the two of us will stick together over here. But… keep in regular contact, okay? Don’t turn off your cellphone or anything, and if you’re going to lose reception, give a heads-up. Understand?”

Takane nodded. “Right, right… sounds good. Ugh, now I’m all worried and stuff! Master! If anything happens to you two, I’m holding you responsible!”

“Wha—How can I be responsible for things like that?!”

“Because, you’re the one who’s supposed to save everyone! Anyway, if that’s it, I’m gonna head back, since there’s not too much time before Haruka was planning on leaving.”

When neither of them spoke up to stop her, she disappeared from Shintaro’s phone. He immediately went to turn it off, and Tsubomi gave him a glare. “Hey, I just said not to do that. What if something happens to me, huh? Enomoto needs to be able to contact you, too.”

“I don’t want her in my phone!”

“This is more important than your phone!” She was getting worked up again. Tsubomi took a deep breath and turned towards the street below in an attempt to calm down. “Your sister’s concert is in the city, you said? Where?”

“… There’s that one venue that’s kind of in the area of the Dan hideout, right? On the bus line that goes to the nearby station. I think it’s there, at least for tonight’s show…”

“So, we’re kind of far from that as well… Well, this is what I think. We’ll go see if we can meet anyone who didn’t pick up their phones. Or, at worst, find out if they wound up like Shuuya… so at least we’d know. Since I think everyone else is back where we came from, that would mean… Sis’s apartment is probably the closest right now.”

“Ayano didn’t answer when you tried to call?”

“She usually doesn’t… so if it weren’t for this, I wouldn’t think anything of it, you know?”

“… Right.” But it seemed Shintaro wanted to try anyway, with the way he was messing with his phone. He caught her gaze and hesitated for a moment, but when she didn’t say anything, he continued scrolling through his contacts. He selected one, and Tsubomi watched as he raised the phone to his ear.

“… Good luck.”

The two of them held their breath, but after several long, painful seconds, Shintaro lowered his phone again and shook his head.

It wasn’t unexpected, but that didn’t mean it was any less disheartening.


	9. ハートビート期待 [Heartbeat Kitai] - Heartbeat Expectation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, I've caught up to my backlog, so there's going to be a posting break. The next chapter will be posted in four weeks, and I should have a better idea of the long-term schedule at that point.

At times, it felt like Hibiya couldn’t tell who was being more immature: him, or the rest of the Mekakushi Dan.

He’d had an ability, just like the rest of them. An ability that he’d only used… what, once? Twice? So few times that he’d basically not even had it at all. Less than twenty-four hours. He and Hiyori died on August 15th. On that same August 15th, Marry took all of their abilities, and Hiyori came back from that world.

It was one single, long, stupid day.

They had said that he’d belonged, in that overbearing way of adults insisting they know what’s best for kids. Even without abilities, they called him a comrade. They pulled him into stupid things, inane things, things where he didn’t belong no matter what they said.

For him, it wasn’t his ability that was burned into his memory. It was that infinite day that returned forever in that terrible, endlessly repeating world.

He only realized after a while that what he had really wanted was someone who would understand his pain. Someone who shared the terror of waking up in the kagerou daze and knowing, once again, that the world was going to kill someone and there was nothing you could do to escape it.

He had wanted to talk to Hiyori, but it seemed that, cruelly enough, a rift had grown between them. He wanted someone who understood those decades trapped in August 15 with no “tomorrow” in sight, one friend and death disguised as a black cat as your only company. But it was because he wanted that that he knew he couldn’t burden Hiyori with his own problems. Because he had managed to walk out after so little time, leaving Hiyori behind to be trapped in that endless world alone for centuries.

Hiyori turned to Momo, the adult that she trusted, whom she felt she could confide in despite the fact that Momo had no real idea of what Hiyori had gone through. It kind of hurt, in that way that clenched at his stomach and made his heart ache with what was probably jealousy. He didn’t understand, but he’d definitely understand better than Momo. That much he was certain of. But what Hiyori was seeking wasn’t someone who would understand her pain, and what she wanted, Hibiya couldn’t provide. He still kept an eye on her, he still talked to Momo to find out how Hiyori was coping, but he didn’t talk to her about his problems and she didn’t talk to him about hers.

They had each watched each other die so many times. They had each sacrificed themselves for each other so many times. It was the sort of thing you just couldn’t talk about in this world that felt so safe by comparison.

Of all people, he found himself talking to Ayano.

She didn’t understand, either. Her experience in the daze, too, was different from his. But she remembered the time, which made it closer to his experience than almost all the others. She remembered and was willing to listen to him.

So he would call her and just talk. He would tell her the same stories over and over again. Watching a pole go straight through Hiyori’s body. Watching Hiyori’s body go flying as it was hit by a truck. Watching Hiyori fall from an overpass. Waking up in bed and knowing that it was the same days again and he had no idea how to do anything in that terrible world but watch her die. Watch her die, or, die himself.

He’d talk at her until he got tired of talking. Then he’d get mad at her for not understanding. She’d apologize, and right before he hung up, she’d always leave him with a gentle, “Until next time.”

For two years, it was always “Until next time.” And for two years, whenever he came back to the city, he was dragged back into some stupid activity or another with these shameless adults who acted so much more immature than him.

It took two years for him to get fed up with it.

He yelled at her that time, actually shouted, actually angry. What he needed was someone who would understand his pain, but there was no one like that in the world. Ayano had just been pretending for two years; the rest of them had just been trying to cover it up for two years. He didn’t belong. He wasn’t one of them. Their pain was nothing like his, and he hung up on her before she could make a promise for next time.

There wasn’t a next time after that.

Though he still spoke to Momo, rarely, and remained as close friends with Hiyori as he could manage, he never saw or spoke to the rest of them after that.

Just like a child, he’d thrown a tantrum and burned his bridges.

Probably, he was the most immature one of them after all.

* * *

 

It occurred to him that this was the summer that put him at the age that most of the rest of them had been when that terrible incident had occurred all those years ago. Now he knew he was an idiot for thinking of all of them as adults when they had been this young. He didn’t really feel like an adult at all, himself.

He also realized that he’d probably punch any kid who’d have the gall to refer to Hiyori as ‘old lady’ at this age, but stubbornness dictated that he’d never admit such a thing out loud or apologize to Momo.

It was August 14, and Hibiya awoke to the feeling of heat enveloping him. For half a second, he was back in the daze, surrounded by monochrome with red and blue and it was way, way too hot. He bolted upright with a shout, but that’s when the blanket fell from his body and off the side of the couch, allowing the cool of the air conditioned room to hit his skin and raise momentary goosebumps. The world around him came into focus, revealing the full spectrum of colors as he looked around the room, not his room, and then down at the blanket that had been covering him a second ago.

“Shhh! Everyone else is still asleep!”

He looked up again to find Hiyori sticking her head out of her room, a finger on her lips as she glared at him, her hair wrapped in a towel. Hibiya went quiet for a moment as he gathered his bearings, then blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Why the hell was I covered in a blanket?”

“Because I’m doing a favor for my suitemates,” Hiyori answered in an annoyed tone as she walked over to pick it up from the floor. “Not only did you have to be annoying and insist on staying at my place, you’re sleeping in something like _that!”_

She tossed the blanket at him and he startled. Hibiya managed to catch it, and quickly lifted it again to see what she was talking about. He didn’t see anything wrong with the t-shirt and shorts he’d fallen asleep in, though, and looked up at her again after a moment. “… Like what?”

She scrunched up her face at him. “That’s _underwear_ , isn’t it?! And your shirt was riding up every time I looked! And—look, I don’t want the other girls to have to see something like that first thing when they get up, so just keep the blanket on!”

“I told you, I don’t have to sleep out here! If I’m in your room—”

“You are _not_ sleeping in my room! We’re sixteen, Hibiya! We’re not little kids anymore!”

“Hiyori…?” They both turned to find one of Hiyori’s suitemates poking her head out from the door to her room. The girl gave a yawn before continuing. “You two are being kinda loud; could you stop…?”

“Ah, sorry Haruno…!” She gave an apologetic wave, then turned to glare at Hibiya again as the other girl retreated back into her room. “So are you getting up or not?”

“You’re going to be hanging out with that stupid fanclub, right? Pass. I’d rather sleep.”

“It’s not stupid! Geeze. You come and intrude on my space and then can’t even have the decency to apologize by being a proper servant or anything like that! That’s not how you should act towards someone you’re so indebted to…”

He sighed and lay back down on the couch. When he had asked if he could stay with Hiyori for Obon, he hadn’t expected that she’d still be in her dorm. Maybe, she’d become a bit less stubborn over the years, or maybe it was because she was also just a little bit nervous about the dates burned into both their memories. In any case, this was probably a time when she should have said no, instead of complaining about how inconsiderate he was and then agreeing before he even had to ask a second time. He didn’t even want to stay in her room, necessarily, but it felt really weird to be sleeping on the couch in the common space shared by three girls. At least she could have set up a futon for him on her floor, or something like that.

She took the towel from her hair and moved into the bathroom. Soon the sound of a hair dryer started up.

Hibiya rolled over, fully intending to get back to sleep. But even without the blanket it felt like every time he started to drift off, a wave of heat rolled through his body, startling him awake again. At least the couch was yellow to greet his eyes each time they snapped open in a panic.

Obon was really stupid, after all.

The hairdryer turned off and a door opened.

“Have you fallen asleep again yet?” She asked it somewhat tentatively.

“… No.” He could tell her why. He knew she’d understand why. But those were terrifying memories that she didn’t want to be reminded of, so he pressed his face into the couch and didn’t say any more.

“Did you sleep through the earthquake last night?” Less hesitant now that she knew he was still awake.

“Yeah… mostly. The noise woke me up for a bit, though.”

“Ah… that’s good. I had a hard time sleeping again after it.” He lifted his head again to look her way, but she was facing away from him, running a brush through her hair.

“… Hey. If you’re going out, can I set up a futon in your room now?”

She turned around and scrunched up her nose at him. “Why do you want to stay in my room so badly, anyway? Fine, but we don’t have a futon, so you’ll just have to use blankets. And if I find out that you sleep in my bed, you are _so_ dead!”

“Wh-what kind of guy do you take me for?! I-I wouldn’t do that! No way!” … Though now he was thinking about it, and he could feel his face slowly heating up. Sleeping in Hiyori’s bed? … No! He wasn’t going to do anything like that, so it wasn’t worth thinking about! Hibiya shook his head, though his ears continued to burn.

It would probably smell like her, too—

“I mean it, Hibiya!”

“I wasn’t thinking of anything weird!”

Ah, that probably sounded like a confession. Hiyori turned completely in surprise, a bright red color to match Hibiya. After a moment, her eyes narrowed, and she stormed over to him. He thought she was going to yell again, but instead she raised a hand and placed a good smack on his cheek.

“Wh-what was that for?!” … Though it wasn’t that he didn’t deserve it…

“Pervert.”

She huffed and disappeared into her room for a moment, then reemerged with her purse.

“We’re still meeting up after the concert’s done, right?”

“… Yeah.” Because, somehow, even though neither of them said anything, they were both still afraid of tomorrow. It was just one of those things that went silently understood between the two of them. Four years later, and still neither of them wanted to spend August 15th alone. “At 11, right?”

“Well, no earlier than that, probably. And depending on how crowded it is, it might take me some time to get out.”

“Not like I have anything to do but wait, anyway. I’ll be there.”

Hiyori moved to the door. “Okay, um… See you then, then, I suppose. A-and I mean it, about sleeping in my bed!” With that, she headed out, and Hibiya wasn’t quite sure whether or not he’d heard a soft ‘thanks’ mumbled as the door shut behind her.

He lay back down on the couch and stared at the ceiling for several long minutes. He turned to the side, then the other, then back again, trying and failing to get comfortable. Finally, Hibiya gave a sigh and grabbed the blanket off the floor.

Hiyori had let him see her room briefly earlier, but now he actually had the chance to look around it. Not that he really felt like it, though. It was a bit too much like snooping. Maybe he’d change his mind when he got up later, but for now, he just lay the blanket down near the foot of her bed and curled up on top of it, listening to the soft hum of the air conditioning and the tick of a clock as he finally managed to drift off to sleep again.

… The room smelled like her, too.

* * *

 

When he woke, her room looked no different than it had a few hours ago, though perhaps it was a little lighter outside the window. Hibiya rolled over and checked his phone. It was a bit after noon.

Somehow, there was something a little bit disconcerting about that.

He sat up and looked around again, taking stock of the decorations. Mostly, it just felt like an average high school girl’s room. If it weren’t for the couple of posters of Momo carefully pinned to the walls, he wouldn’t have known it was Hiyori’s room in particular at all.

In both posters, Momo’s eyes were their normal dark color. Somehow, it seemed kind of strange to Hibiya. Not that he really paid much attention, but he was pretty sure that a lot of the stuff you could buy with Momo’s face on it still had those bright red eyes from years and years ago.

Maybe Hiyori had bought ones that didn’t have them on purpose.

Probably, Hiyori had bought ones that didn’t have them on purpose.

He leaned against the foot of her bed and started playing with his phone. He had over ten hours before they were going to meet up again. What sort of thing was he expected to do in the meantime? Probably if he went out, it would be hard if not impossible to get back in, especially without Hiyori’s help. In that case, should he just stay inside and use his phone to kill time? That sounded kind of stupid, though getting locked out also sounded kind of stupid. And going with Hiyori to hang out with the bunch of girls that made up the branch of Momo’s fanclub that she belonged to also sounded kind of stupid.

The whole day was kind of stupid.

He pulled himself up and went back into the common space. The girls had a kitchen, so maybe, at least, he could make himself lunch.

At least one of Hiyori’s suitemates was up by now, sitting on the couch he’d been sleeping on before as she watched some sort of variety show on the TV. Hibiya glanced at her, and she at him, before he moved to the kitchen and she went back to her show. But a few seconds later, without turning his way, she spoke up.

“Ah, so you’re the guy who’s Hiyori’s boyfriend.”

“—E-eh?! I-I’m not—! She doesn’t think of me like that! D-does she?! W-wait, does she have an actual boyfriend—?!”

… She was laughing at him. Hibiya felt his face heat up, as he realized that probably, she’d been teasing. This was why girls were so annoying…

“You know what? Never mind! I don’t want to know.”

“You like her.”

“I don’t!”

But he’d done a terrible job of hiding it, and she laughed again. Rather than rise to any more bait, Hibiya resolved to ignore her as he started poking through the fridge and cabinets. There weren’t many raw ingredients around; most of what he found was instant food. Well, not that he was really surprised, but since there were three of them he’d expected at least _one_ would be into cooking.

“… Hey, whose cup noodles are these?”

“They’re mine,” she responded without even looking up. “You can’t have any of it.”

“Shina, don’t be mean to him!” Ah, it was the girl from this morning. Hibiya looked up as she emerged from her room. “We all share them, so you can have one if you want. Did Hiyori leave you alone for the day? She’s going to a concert, right?”

“Right… yeah. Well, the plans just worked out the wrong way, I guess. We’re meeting up afterwards, but I’m kind of stuck until then…” He started preparing the cup he’d grabbed, even though instant noodles were low on his preferred choices for food. Definitely, tomorrow, he’d cook her something.

“Ah, that must be disappointing. Well, since you’re Hiyori’s friend, you’re welcome to stay here for a while.”

“Just don’t make a mess or anything.”

Hibiya scrunched up his face that the back of Shina’s head. She sounded really bratty… Probably, she was the type to leave messes lying around, herself. “I won’t. Hey, she hasn’t… said anything weird to either of you recently, has she? About tomorrow?”

“Huh?” Both of them turned to look at him, confused. Haruno was the one who answered first. “Weird? Well, no, not that I can think of… Why?”

… Crap. “Ah, it’s… the anniversary of something bad that happened a while ago. I wasn’t sure if she still remembered, and if she didn’t, I didn’t want to remind her…” Though he knew there was no way she’d forgotten. Not after only four years. Not after only four short years. “So… don’t say anything about it! Okay?!”

“R-right!”

“Yeah, whatever.”

* * *

 

Hibiya retreated back into her room afterwards, once again settling at the foot of her bed. There was still so much time left to go. If there had been something to cook, that might have at least taken a while, but the instant noodles were gone in no time at all. If he’d thought this through, he probably would have realized that something like this would happen. There’s no way she’d have given him keys or anything, so without going with her, he’d gotten himself stuck in this situation.

He really was an idiot.

From the other side of the room came a strange beeping sound, quiet at first, but slowly growing in volume the longer it continued. At first he tried to ignore it, hoping it would go away, but before long it was pretty apparent that it wasn’t stopping. Finally, after holding out a whole minute, Hibiya stood up and turned towards the noise. “Arg, what the hell is—?!”

His eyes settled on a small, black object on the nightstand next to Hiyori’s bed. It continued beeping, and was flashing as well, and Hibiya felt his heart sink.

Hiyori left her phone behind.

He made his way over to it and looked down. Some alarm that she had set was going off, and the screen was showing a message about meeting people for crepes at some place he’d never heard of. Hesitantly, he tapped the screen, and immediately the noise disappeared.

If she’d set alarms for her schedule… probably she’d notice her phone was missing, right? Would she come back for it? He wanted to think she would, but it had been several hours since she’d left already. She had to have already noticed. Was she not coming back? Or, maybe she hadn’t, if she was too wrapped up in whatever she was doing. But, she’d want to text someone, right? Or look up directions… Though, it looked at least like no one had texted her since the last time she’d used her phone herself…

What was he supposed to do? They’d never find each other in the crowd after Momo’s concert like this!

“… Stupid.”

He picked up the phone and stared at the lock screen. Maybe he could text someone in her group, and coordinate with them to get Hiyori her phone back. But, would he even know who to text? He could find out, though. He’d have to go through her information, and her conversations…

“… stupid…”

How was he even thinking about something like that? If someone had texted her, that would be one thing, but he really couldn’t go through her phone himself. She’d kill him, and besides, that was probably the sorts of things she’d want to keep private…

He lowered the phone and leaned against her bed, staring at it blankly. If it were something like this, maybe he should have just gone with her after all. Even if it meant dealing with all those other girls that he didn’t really care about, at least, they’d be able to arrange something ahead of time knowing that she wouldn’t have her phone later on.

They had only an hour after the concert ended before the date rolled over to the 15th. The realization twisted a knot in his stomach that made him feel kind of like he wanted to throw up. He couldn’t let her be alone on August 15. Absolutely, certainly not.

She had to come back for her phone. If she didn’t, then…

“Hey…” He emerged from her room again, and the two girls looked up at him. “Do either of you know any of the people Hiyori said she was going to go see today?”

“Nope.”

“Ah… I don’t either, sorry.”

“… Great. This just keeps getting worse…”

But if he kept her phone with him, at least, he’d notice if someone messaged Hiyori. With nothing better to do, he sat down on the couch, letting the noise of the variety show serve as some weak distraction from the anxiety slowly but surely building inside of him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid Obon.

* * *

 

The noise of a cell phone ringing startled him awake before he even realized he’d nodded off, and immediately he looked to the phone in his hand. But Hiyori’s phone was quiet, and it took him another few seconds to realize that it was his own phone that was being called. Hibiya pulled it from his pocket and looked at the screen.

The number was unfamiliar, and not one of his contacts, but hoping that maybe Hiyori could have had someone else call him, he answered. “Uh… hello?”

It was a female voice as expected, though not Hiyori’s. “Thank goodness… At least one of you is still alive…”

The words sent a chill through him, and without thinking he stood up, not quite sure where he meant to be going. “H—huh?! What the hell are you—Who is this?!”

Hiyori’s suitemates were staring at him.

“It’s Tsubomi. Tsubomi Kido… ah… From the Mekakushi Dan. I… Ah, where do I even start…”

At the words ‘Mekakushi Dan’, he knew he couldn’t have this conversation around other people. Not a conversation that had started as this one had. He could only hope that the others wouldn’t be able to overhear, as he scrambled into Hiyori’s room and closed the door behind him. “Kido… like, Commander Kido, right?” Why was she calling him after all this time? She’d never called him before, so…

In such a situation, this could only be something bad, couldn’t it?

“Yeah. I… Hibiya, listen. Something strange is going on… Shintaro and I both have our abilities back. You… probably would have yours as well, I’d think. I bet we all do.”

“Eh?!” His ability. His ability, the one that had, the only time he’d used it for anything, found the place that all of them had been meaning to go. A superhuman ability that could see far more than what was just in front of his face… “Hey, if I have it, then I could—!”

“The ability isn’t what’s important right now,” she cut him off. He almost wanted to argue with her, but she spoke first, and those words made his heart stop for a moment. “Shuuya’s dead. Kano. Kano’s dead. We don’t know who did it, but… I think things are getting bad again. Bad like before. So, you need to be careful…”

“Dead?” Dead, on August… 14th. That… wasn’t right, was it? It had always been the 15th. Even though he’d forgotten after spending so long in that world, surely he remembered all of them talking about it afterwards. Even Shintaro, who seemed to be the only one who understood anything of what was going on, had said it. The 14th wasn’t actually a day that was supposed to mean anything. “Like… actually dead?”

“… Yeah. Actually dead.” Tsubomi sounded like she might be crying. Had he ever actually seen her cry?

But then the reality of her words hit him, and his gaze dropped to Hiyori’s phone, now clutched tightly in his other hand. No… she couldn’t be dead. Not again. Not this time. Not on this day, which was only supposed to be painful for the two of them, while the rest of the group had only ever worried about tomorrow…

It would be most appropriate for the two of them to die today, though, wouldn’t it? After all, they’d already died on this day so many times already. What was another one or two to add to that pain?

He was shaking, he realized, continuing to stare at Hiyori’s phone.

Tsubomi’s voice picked up in his ear again.

“Just… like I said, be careful, okay? We’re still trying to figure out what’s going on, but it’s possible you’re in danger, too. Keep your eyes open.”

“Hey, uh, Commander…” He swallowed thickly, trying to push down his dark thoughts. No, if she were dead, he’d hear something, right? Somehow, word would get to her suitemates, and they would have said something. Besides, it could be a coincidence…

There was no way this was a coincidence. Not if their abilities were back.

He had to find her.

“Do you think… Hiyori would be in danger, too? I know she’s not quite like us, but she still got involved, right? So, maybe…”

It was several painful seconds before she answered. “I can’t really say for certain, until we learn more. Do you want me to call her?”

Calling. Calling was useless. If she called Hiyori, all she’d do was reach the other phone he was looking at right now. Well, if the Commander didn’t have any better ideas, that meant it was going to be up to him. “Don’t bother trying. I’m going to go figure something out on my own. But definitely let me know if you learn any more yourself, okay?!”

“Hey—Hibiya, you’re not going to do anything rash, right?”

“‘Course not. Talk to you later!”

He hung up and immediately started changing to go out. He was going to find Hiyori. There was nothing else his power could have been meant for but to do this.

* * *

 

Hiyori had mentioned that she won a special pass to meet Momo backstage before the concert. He remembered because he’d thought that it was kind of ridiculous when the two of them were already friends. But Hiyori had given some reason that involved Momo always being on tour that still sounded more like an excuse to try to justify herself than anything else, and also gotten mad at him, so he’d kept the rest of his thoughts to himself.

Either way, he didn’t know how far ahead of time she was going to arrive at the concert venue, and besides that, it was already starting to get late.

There was also the issue that he didn’t actually know how to get his ability working.

There were three entrances, so it wasn’t like he could just sit there waiting to spot Hiyori like normal, when she might not even walk by him. But it was all he really could do. Sit there, and try to will his ability into activating itself so he could find her properly.

Come to think of it, hadn’t Momo talked about how she never really got her ability fully under control? And she’d actually had it for years.

Thinking about it like that made him uneasy. He also didn’t like the fact that he’d found a flaw the two of them shared.

He even tried to think about the women’s changing areas, but that had just resulted in awkwardness without any real result. Well, it had been a stupid way to activate it last time, anyway… even if it had worked then.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there. Possibly an hour at least, long enough for the flow of people to thin out considerably, and the time at which the concert would start came and went. At this point, finding Hiyori before she entered was probably a lost cause. Definitely, she was already inside, as he heard a cheer erupt loud enough to even make it out the doors, though at least he couldn’t hear any music or anything like that.

He sighed and looked at his phone. Well, if things were already underway, maybe it was time to go get some food. He hadn’t even had dinner, and at this point, even if he could find Hiyori, he wouldn’t be able to get to her. Not without a ticket.

He stood up from the curb he’d been waiting on and dusted himself off. As if on cue, his stomach growled loudly, and he sighed.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I’ll get some food, so be quiet…”

He started to walk along the outside of the building, peeking at the options for different restaurants as he passed them. Nothing caught his eye, though three noodle places in a row turned his stomach as he remembered his pitiful lunch. Hiyori had probably had something good to eat, and dinner too…

Hibiya glanced back at the concert venue, and suddenly the whole world seemed to lose focus. The streetlight in front of him blurred and he stumbled a little, but caught himself. “What the…?”

Momo.

There was a separate image in his eyes, completely separate from the scenery in front of him, and the realization hit him like a train. She was stumbling, dancing, wearing that stupid costume of hers, and… singing. She’d started singing.

He was watching her.

His ability was working.

He managed to take a few unsteady steps back towards the building, eyes unfocused as he stared at a completely different image. There was Momo… but where was Hiyori? Hiyori was the one who he’d been trying to find all day. He knew where Momo was, she’d be doing her concert—

… Ah, of course that would be it. Momo’s eyes were red again.

“Stupid old lady! I can’t look for Hiyori like this! Stop using your power, already!”

He shouted it, not caring that she couldn’t hear him, not caring that there were people around who could. It looked, sort of, like she was right in front of him. Well, below, actually, since he was seeing her from above. But it almost seemed like she was so close, so shouting at her had made sense at the time, though now that he thought about it that was probably a bad idea.

Still, if he could keep this up until she was done, maybe her ability would stop before his would, and he could find Hiyori as she was exiting. He moved back towards the entrance, only half paying attention to Momo as he focused on the view in front of him, dinner already forgotten.

But then Momo looked up, and maybe it was her power or just something else, but Hibiya’s attention snapped back to her. He was just in time to see her look of confusion turn to shock, and then fear.

Suddenly a large object flew into view and struck Momo straight in the stomach with enough force that she was pushed backwards and he saw blood.

The image disappeared from Hibiya’s view as he shrieked, stopping short suddenly enough that he tripped and fell to his knees. Pain shot through his legs but he barely even noticed it. Even without his ability that look of Momo’s persisted his mind, the exact moment that whatever it was had collided with her, and a second later he wasn’t seeing Momo at all. He was seeing a different girl, at the exact instant that a pole impaled her stomach and ran her straight through, just as vivid in his memory as it had been four years ago.

It was probably a good thing that he hadn’t had dinner yet, though what remained of the instant noodles burned uncomfortably coming back up by itself.

* * *

 

He hadn’t really expected security to let him through, but he hadn’t expected them to throw him bodily from the property to the pavement either. Despite his best efforts, Hibiya hadn’t managed to activate his ability again, so at this point, all he could think to do was go between the crowds forming outside the doors, the bodies of the audience members caught up in the accident, and trying to sneak back in. Each stretcher that wasn’t Hiyori was a relief, but he still couldn’t find her, and his worry only grew as the minutes ticked by. By now, the guards at each entrance recognized him, so getting in had become almost impossible… though, at least, the number of bystanders exiting had dropped to zero, so it seemed that the only people left inside were injured or rescue workers.

He tried to ignore the other worry slowly and quietly eating away at him. What he’d seen hadn’t been a lie. He hadn’t seen them bring Momo out, but probably she’d been taken through a back exit… There was no way she was alright after that. He’d seen exactly what happens for that sort of thing, in vivid detail. He’d _felt_ what happens for that sort of thing.

That’s not something you survive.

Maybe, with the Commander’s cautioning, he should have been ready for something like this. Maybe, with it being August 14, he should have been ready for something like this.

August 14th. He’d watched Momo die, and he couldn’t find Hiyori.

Even as he ran through the mass of people, a pair of figures wearing red and purple caught his eye enough to make him stop short.

“Hey, it’s Commander and Momo’s older brother!”

Tsubomi turned first. Shintaro jumped, but when he turned as well he seemed to relax a little. “Oh, it’s just Hibiya…”

Looking at him, the memory from before came back to Hibiya, and he had to suppress a shudder. “Don’t—hey, you know, right?! About… Momo’s…”

“Y… yeah. I heard. Why’re you here, though…?”

A wave of panic washed through him, and he lowered his gaze. “Hi… Hiyori. She was here, too. She had… tickets, to go backstage. I was trying to find her, to give her her phone, but then, I saw… I saw Momo… I saw her when… she…!”

Suddenly, another image appeared to him. It was completely black… no, not quite. It was dark, but there was some shape there, maybe a person, something that he couldn’t quite—

Abruptly, the entire world faded out as he collapsed.


	10. 憂晴しバランスⅠ [Usabarashi Balance Ⅰ] - Diversion Balance Ⅰ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't exactly four weeks like I'd said, but I'm definitely not abandoning this story. It's a coincidence that today is Shintaro's birthday, but in a way it's kind of poetic that this is the day I start things up again, isn't it?
> 
> Anyway, thank you everyone for your patience! I can't say what sort of a schedule this will have for now, since I'm trying to get back into the groove of updating it, but I hope you continue to enjoy it anyway.

All four of the bags the convenience store had handed to the pair of them were completely full, and Takane made an annoyed face. “Like I said, if we were going to have dinner, we should have dinner properly! We don’t need to buy all this stuff…”

“But, wasn’t it you who said we should make sure to be on time, so we could size up the competition…?”

“Ah—Well, yeah, but…”

She trailed off as Haruka took all the bags himself, completely missing the fact that the cashier had probably expected the two of them to share the burden. Well, that was just what it was like with Haruka. Most of the food was his, so he was willing to carry it.

It made things more convenient for her, even if they came across as strange.

“It’ll be fine, won’t it? As long as you don’t spill anything on one of the controllers again.”

“Wha— _me?!_ Haruka, you were the one who put the bottle right in front of me! It wouldn’t have gotten caught on the cord if you’d just put it to the side.”

“Really? I thought you were the one who put it there…”

“No, it was definitely you!” But she trailed off, noticing the pout with a bit more sadness to it than there should be, and realized that this wasn’t the sort of conversation where she could say such things so frivolously to Haruka. “… At least, I _think_ it was you. I… guess I might be wrong…”

Four years later, doubting Haruka’s memory was still dangerous territory. She’d have thought that they’d have moved past it, especially when Haruka hadn’t even had his power messing with his memories for four years. But for those four years, she’d built up his reality around him from what he’d seen now and what she remembered of the things he’d forgotten.

He had trusted her with constructing his past for him. She couldn’t take something like that so lightly.

“Ah, you were right, Takane! It looks like even more people are here now! Whoa, it’s getting so crowded…”

Haruka’s voice drew her out of her thoughts, and she looked up to see what he was talking about. Sure enough, as they approached the convention center where the tournament was being held, there were a much larger number of people around than there had been either of the two previous nights. Well, if some number of them only arrived as early as their own qualifying rounds, that would mean that there was still another group who wouldn’t show up until tomorrow.

Takane had thought that it was kind of annoying that her qualifiers were the last ones before the final rounds, but it had meant that she could get a feel for who else had arrived early. Already, she’d definitely seen some people she expected to have to face in the finals, but there didn’t seem to be any unexpected upstarts. The first day, there had been someone, but she’d gone home early and later heard that he’d just barely missed the top sixteen. Actually, she’d missed both nights’ final rounds so far, since they were held so late that Haruka kept getting tired. Well, he was on a sleep schedule meant for a university student. They’d stayed up later and later the past couple nights, so hopefully he’d manage to stick it out tonight without getting fatigued by the end.

But the next evening looking at the list of names of those who had made it, she recognized all of them. Hopefully there wasn’t going to be something stupid like a dark horse hiding in her qualifiers.

Even still, as long as they weren’t Shintaro’s level of ridiculous, she had a really good chance of beating them.

Shintaro’s level was far beyond the comprehension of normal humans, anyway.

“Oh, excuse me!”

It seemed Haruka had bumped into someone.

“Huuuh?! Hey, when you walk into someone like that, you’re supposed to apologize, you know?! What if your stupid groceries had gotten all over my clothes? Then saying ‘excuse me’ wouldn’t cut it at all!”

… It seemed Haruka had bumped into someone troublesome.

Takane looked up to find a group of men very reminiscent of the set that had first tried to intrude on their shooting game booth all those years ago, and even just the thought gave her an annoyed feeling. But Haruka didn’t remember that incident, so probably, he’d just think of the people he’d met at the tournaments he’d been to before. Most people tended not to use such outright intimidation tactics, however, and she wasn’t quite sure how he’d react to them now.

“Ah, but they didn’t, did they? So in a way, this was really fortunate! I’m glad I didn’t cause any trouble for you with this!”

That didn’t seem to be the answer he’d been looking for, and now his three friends were glaring and moving closer to Haruka as well, trying to crowd him. Haruka seemed completely oblivious.

Maybe there were some fringe benefits to his memory loss.

“Fortunate or not, you gotta offer a proper apology! And why are you bringing so many groceries into a place like this, anyway?! This isn’t a kitchen; it’s a video game tournament! If you like cooking then stay home!”

“Come on, Haruka, just ignore these guys.” She grabbed his sleeve and started pulling him to the side to get around them, and they seemed to notice her for the first time. Or at the very least, two of them had their eyes go as wide as saucers the moment they seemed to register who she was.

Ah, troublesome…

“What, does the little man need his girlfriend to bail him—?”

“Dude, cut it out!” One of the guys punched his loud companion, and Takane used the distraction to start dragging Haruka away. Luckily, he had the good sense to follow, but the group was being loud enough that she could still hear them behind her even as the two of them retreated to the main building. “That’s the chick I was telling you about! The ‘Dancing Princess Ene’ who’s ranked number one!”

Ugh. That nickname was never going to leave her, was it?

The blast of air hit them as they pushed through the door, though it was still kind of warm, as if the AC hadn’t been on for long enough just yet. Takane heaved out a sigh and turned to make sure Haruka was still in one piece behind her. “Hey, you okay?”

“Hmm? Ah, I am! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Ah, you know.” Except he clearly didn’t, and after a moment of searching for words, she continued. “That type of person likes to try to scare the competition in real life, especially if they’re not quite good enough at the game. So I didn’t want you to get mixed up with them, since it would just wind up being something stupid.”

“Oh, so that’s why they were trying to be loud? Now I understand! Thank you, Takane!” The words had her blushing a little, and she finally realized she hadn’t yet let go of Haruka’s sleeve. She lowered her hand back to her side as he continued. “Should we see if we can find a table? Then I can check when my first match is, so we can start eating!”

Always with the food, huh? Some things never changed, after all. Without her realizing, a slight smile made its way to her face. “Sure. Sounds good.” But with more people, there were less free tables, and it took several seconds of scanning the crowd before she found one that at least seemed half empty. Well, that would have to be good enough. “There’s one over there, sorta. Follow me.”

She led him through the tables, weaving around people before finally arriving at the set of empty seats. Luckily, they’d stayed free for the time it took the two of them to make it over. Takane sat down with a loud sigh, and Haruka started putting the convenience store bags onto the table. “I’ll go talk to the officials and be right back!”

He was gone before she realized that she should stop him. Ah, hadn’t Shintaro and Tsubomi said they should stick together?

… Well. There were a lot of people around, and it wasn’t like Haruka was going to go off into a dark corner alone or anything. Even if they split up for the moment, it was almost certain that nothing would happen while they were both here. She turned to watch him weave his way through the crowd before she finally lost sight of him, and after a moment, gave a soft sigh.

Takane took out her cell phone and typed a message on it. _‘Going to check on Shintaro. Be back soon.’_ Then she put it right next to herself, leaned against the table, and put her head in her arms.

... That sounded too ominous. She was worried. She was definitely worried. But, of all people, she didn’t want to worry Haruka, so she lifted her head and reached out to change the message.

She deleted ‘check on’ and replaced it with ‘bother’, then put her head down again and let her consciousness drop into cyberspace.

 

* * *

 

“Wh—Ah!” The blackness blocking the screen disappeared and shifted to reveal Shintaro’s face staring down at her, and she stopped vibrating his phone as strongly as she could make it go.

“Why, Master, I wasn’t sure you’d leave your phone on for me! Truly, you’re a very considerate Master after all!”

His expression soured. “Hey, don’t put it that way like I had a choice. If I hadn’t, Tsubomi would have probably left me behind in that place… And, anyway, didn’t I say to stick with Haruka? Why are you back here?”

“Aren’t I allowed to be worried about you? Geeze! We’re at the tournament right now. Haruka’s off getting information and there’s a ton of people around, so I figured it’d probably be safe enough to check in on the two of you. Commander’s still there too, right?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” Shintaro tilted the phone down, and Tsubomi came into view as well. “Just don’t do it often, alright? We don’t know… how long or how short he needs, to do anything… and, don’t forget, he probably has a gun…”

“Even if he does have a gun, he’d definitely get arrested in a crowd like that! So, I think we’re probably safe, at least for the moment.”

Tsubomi’s face darkened a little, but she didn’t say anything.

“Anyway, what are you two up to?”

They glanced at each other for a moment, then Shintaro spoke up. “We just finished going by Ayano’s place. Her… door was locked, and she didn’t answer, so, hopefully, she’s out right now or something like that…”

The way that their expressions looked, Takane could tell they were worried. She was quiet for a moment. “Ah, I know! Master, the number in your phone for her is up to date, right?”

“Huh—? Well, uh, yeah, as far as I know…”

“Then I’ll go see if I can get into it! One second… ah.” She found the number in his contacts, and sure enough, the moment she opened the line it traced a path through the network for her. A second later, she disappeared from Shintaro’s phone.

Phones were worse than the internet when it came to finding the same person in the same place, but luckily they were all labeled with a number that almost never changed. If she had the number, she could locate the phone it belonged to easily, so the fact that they moved around so much didn’t matter at all.

The view from the screen was the ceiling of a room she didn’t recognize from this angle. Takane could see light coming from one of the windows against the wall, already pretty high up since the sun was going to be setting soon. Besides that, though, there wasn’t anything to see aside from a clock high up on the wall. The hands read a few minutes after 6:15, though the cellphone’s own clock said it was actually a bit earlier than that.

There were a lot of missed calls on the phone. A few from Tsubomi, and even one from Shintaro. Ah, the two of them were really worried about Ayano, weren’t they? Well, Takane couldn’t say that she wasn’t as well. Not knowing Shuuya was dead…

“Heeey! Anyone there?”

Though she didn’t expect a response, and after several seconds of silence greeting her, she returned to Shintaro’s phone.

“Looks like she left it somewhere. No one answered when I shouted, and all I could see from the phone was a clock on the wall.”

“… With a brown outline?”

Takane paused for a moment. “… Yeah, sounds right.”

“That’s inside her apartment…” Tsubomi’s voice was unsteady as she said it, and Shintaro’s eyes went wide for a moment.

“H-hey, that doesn’t mean it’s bad, though, right? Because, she’s the type to leave her phone behind anyway, so, this might not even be strange for her, right…?”

“Y… yeah, I guess.” She straightened up a little and her gaze fell to Shintaro’s phone. “Thanks anyway, Eno… Ene. But, shouldn’t you be going back soon?”

“Hmm? Ah, yeah, I guess so. Haruka’s probably done by now. What are you two going to do?”

“Have dinner, first,” Shintaro mumbled, and Tsubomi rolled her eyes a little, but she didn’t object or anything like that. “Then we’ll probably head back, and maybe try to check on Kosuke and Marry…”

“Okay, you two! Have fun on your date!”

Both of them went stiff, and Shintaro’s face immediately turned into a glare. “Don’t say stupid things like that…! We’re trying to save people here, not have some weird romance or whatever!”

“Yeah, yeah, of course, Master. Talk to you later!”

She was gone again before he could protest further.

 

* * *

 

She lifted her head to find Haruka had already finished all the food from the first convenience store bag and had started in on the second, but the moment she was up he turned to look at her.

“Ah, welcome back! I didn’t think you’d mind if I didn’t wait for you, so I started eating already. I saw your message; how is Shintaro?”

“Yeah, I don’t mind.” She gave a quick glance around, but though the people opposite them at the table were giving Haruka occasional strange looks, they didn’t seem to notice or realize that Takane had just been completely passed out for a little while. Well, probably it didn’t look different from her taking a nap, anyway, though if anyone had tried to wake her, the difference would have quickly become obvious. “The two of them seem to be doing well enough. Ayano left her phone alone in her apartment, though, so we’re not sure how she is…” She took her measly three items from the bag Haruka had left nearest her, and started in on her own dinner.

“Ah, that’s a shame… It’d be good if everyone was alright, wouldn’t it? But… I guess it’s already too late for that…” He seemed to be trying not to sound sad, but he was too honest a type to say such a thing without sounding at least a little upset.

“Yeah.” She sighed. “Well, the best we can do right now is keep living our lives and keep an eye out, I think. So, for now, let’s not worry too much about it.”

“Right.” He took another mouthful of food, and to his credit he swallowed most of it before speaking. “Oh, that’s right! The times for the matches are set when both participants check in! Since my opponent hasn’t shown up yet, I don’t have a time yet, but they said that the matches that are currently slotted are expected to take until at least 7:30. So I just need to check back before then.”

“Random order? That’s strange… Maybe it’s because this tournament is so big.”

“It could be. Or maybe because it’s late in the day, they had a lot of people sign up who still have to work over the holiday? So this way, those people can commute in and not worry about being late.”

“If they have to commute in, shouldn’t they still be working? Either they’d fall asleep because it got late, or they usually work late so they shouldn’t be leaving work to get here…”

Definitely, this was supposed to be a tournament for college-age people, those who made their livelihoods through games, and maybe shut-ins. Though, with its prize, she could definitely see the appeal, even for adults who should be doing other things.

“I wonder what I should do in the meantime? Maybe I can do some more practice matches!”

“You should finish eating, first!” Most of the third bag was still left, and he’d also filled up about half of the fourth. There was no way that he was done with his food already.

But he paused, and she turned to find him staring at her with that wide smile of his.

“Wh-what?!”

“Ah, I was just thinking that this is a lot of fun already! We don’t get to spend much time together anymore, do we? So it’s nice that we have these days together now.”

Takane felt her face heat up, and she quickly turned back to her food. “Stop staying stupid things and finish your meal already!”

 

* * *

 

She left Haruka sitting at one of the practice tables. It had already drawn a crowd, thanks to a trio of skilled players sitting there that Takane was already familiar with. Each night, four people from the night’s qualifiers advanced to the final tournament block, and it was double-elimination for anyone who wasn’t disqualified by no-show. Under those rules, she thought, Haruka had about a 75% chance of making it.

She was still waiting for there to be a dark horse among all the hopefuls, drawn to the tournament because it was lucrative rather than because this was how they always made their living. It felt like all large tournaments had at least one.

At least, there hadn’t been one until now. Though that wasn’t very reassuring when her qualifying matches were tomorrow.

“Hey, world champ. Warm-up?” She turned to find Koichi, the guy who had been second place to her first in three of the last four tournaments she’d played in, sitting at an otherwise abandoned gaming station. He was giving her a flat look, but then again, he wasn’t a very expressive guy.

“I’m not the world champ, so stop calling me that. And I don’t need a warm-up. I’m not playing until tomorrow.”

“Just here scouting? Me too. Play a match.”

She made a face, even as she sat down next to him. “Ugh, so you’re in my quals? Do you know if they put anyone else who’s good into tomorrow’s brackets?”

“Jyukyu.”

Takane made another face. That was the username of one of the guys who didn’t come to tournaments often, but when he did, he always placed in the top four. She’d even lost to him a couple times.

But then the match started up, and she relaxed and let herself slip back into the familiar rhythm of playing the game that got her into the competitive scene in the first place.

 

* * *

 

The scores appeared on the screen, and Takane jumped as a loud cheer erupted from around her. She slowly turned to find a large crowd had amassed, probably even larger than the one that had been gathered at Haruka’s table before. Ah, how long had all of them been here? Had they been watching her match with Koichi?

“As expected of the Dancing Princess Ene! Your playstyle is truly marvelous!”

“So you’re the famous Ene?! Please have a match with me!”

“Even though I lost my qualifying matches, just getting the chance to watch you play has made this tournament worth it for me!”

They were the sort of words that made her feel a little sick, even though she’d heard them so many times before. Rather, it wasn’t that she wasn’t used to such a thing, but more that it was a reminder that she had become used to such things that she really didn’t like.

She didn’t really hide her scowl from her face as she put the controller down and stood up. “What’s with all of you? This wasn’t even an actual tournament match! If you want to watch me play more, come back tomorrow and watch my round of qualifiers!”

A disappointed sound rolled through the crowd, and though Takane tried to push her way out, she found that they had packed in too tightly, and besides, they didn’t seem eager to let her leave. She wasn’t going to have to do something stupid like crawl her way out, was she? Though, it wasn’t that she hadn’t done such a thing before…

Ah. That was a memory she’d tried really hard to forget.

“Ene.”

She turned back to Koichi.

“At this rate, Jyukyu will win.”

She scowled harder and crossed her arms. “What, and that’s supposed to scare me? Or are you trying to get me to play another match with you?”

“It’s a fact.” Koichi shrugged and stood up, but soon he, too, found himself boxed in by the crowd. “… Ah.”

“We’re stuck.”

“… We’re stuck.”

“This is your fault.”

“You’re the one who’s famous.”

“Yeah, but you knew that and still challenged me! Look, this doesn’t—… Okay, all you gawking idiots! Match is over! Let us out already, dammit!”

 

* * *

 

It still took the crowd a good three minutes to clear out to the point where she was able to slip more than five feet from the table. Takane went over to find Haruka, but strangely enough, he wasn’t at the table she’d left him at anymore. Ah, maybe he’d gone to check on his first match?

She turned to see the match currently being projected onto several large screens around the room, but it didn’t look like Haruka was one of the participants. Well, it was only 7:35. His match was probably still not going to be for a while, though it seemed strange that he wasn’t back at the table in the meantime.

… She didn’t want to be worried about him. They were in public, right? In this crowded space. So there’s no way that ‘that guy’ would be able to do anything to either of them. Or at least she could hope. Though, come to think of it, ‘that guy’ had possessed Haruka before, hadn’t he? That… wasn’t going to happen again, right?

Where was Haruka right now?

She glanced around and then made her way back to one of the empty tables. She’d just check quickly. All she needed to do was get into Haruka’s cell phone, and then she’d know for sure that he was fine. She wouldn’t even need to be gone long enough to leave him a message. Just put her head down, and use her power once again.

The signal to Haruka’s cell phone should have taken only a second. But as time slowly flowed onwards, one second became several, and just as she was about to get worried the signal came back to confirm her fears.

The cell phone with Haruka’s number wasn’t locatable.

It… had to be a mistake, right? Haruka was here, in this building, with her. His phone should even be in the same cell as hers, or, maybe a nearby one, if the phone companies had set up more towers to handle the load from everyone at the tournament… She tried again, actually following the signal herself. But, sure enough, it reached the dispatch and received no response. That… that couldn’t be right.

Could it?

She lifted her head up and looked around. Maybe it was her hope that Haruka would be sitting next to her like before. Maybe it was her fear that it wouldn’t be Haruka at all.

But there was no one, except the four guys sitting across from her, absorbed in some sort of handheld game that was doing a good job of keeping their attention off her.

Should she tell Shintaro?

She should probably tell Shintaro.

“Master! Master!! Hey, Master, pick up the phone already!!”

She shouted it, even as she raised the volume on his phone as high as it would go and buzzed it for good measure. It worked, as not two seconds later he was glaring down at her through the screen. “H-hey, keep it down! We’re on the train, so my phone’s supposed to be on silent…! Ah, and now everyone probably thinks I have some weird ringtone…!”

But next to him, Tsubomi’s eyes were red, so wouldn’t he not have to worry about those sorts of things?

“That’s not important right now! Master, I don’t know where Haruka is, and I can’t reach his cell phone!”

Shintaro froze, and even Tsubomi went a little bit stiff. But then the image started to shake a little, and Takane realized that he’d started shivering. “Wha… wasn’t he at the tournament with you? What happened? Where’d he go?”

“Yeah, we were together, but… ah, we split up for him to play a match, or several, and then there was this crowd of people, and… he wasn’t at the table anymore, so I thought I’d go to his cellphone instead…”

Shintaro pressed a hand to his face, making a noise that sounded halfway between frustration and fear. For not even a second, his eyes flashed red.

“Master…?”

“It… might be Haruka.” His voice was quiet enough that Takane felt as if she had to lean in, though he hadn’t spoken in a whisper at all.

Tsubomi’s eyes went wide. “Kisaragi…?”

“Haruka… was there, at the end. Haruka was still alive when I got shot. He’s… had ‘that guy’ inside him before, hasn’t he? He’s killed us all before. Lots and lots of times. So… shit. _Shit._ If it’s Haruka, what can we even do…?” Looking up at Shintaro’s expression, even in this body that couldn’t feel anything, a chill went down her spine.

“H-hey… hey! What’s with that sort of accusation?! You don’t… you don’t really think it’s Haruka, do you? I was telling you because I thought he’d be in danger, not because he’d…!”

On the other hand, she’d thought the same, hadn’t she? She had seen the way that he changed in an instant all those years ago.

Though she didn’t want to admit it, her first thought after failing to find his cellphone wasn’t about _him_ being the one in danger at all.

Shintaro’s expression was dark. “I… I don’t know. But, it could be… and, at this point, it’s really likely, isn’t it? Who else _would_ it be…?”

Takane opened her mouth, then closed it again. It was the question she didn’t want asked, because she didn’t have the answer to it.

But it seemed Tsubomi, at least, had a counter to it. “What makes you so sure it’s him? Or any of us? Couldn’t it just be someone else?”

“I… can’t really explain it. Maybe it’s something… I don’t remember. Or, maybe I’m wrong…” but his tone of voice seemed to indicate that he wasn’t convinced. And as much as Takane wanted to believe in the possibility, that there _was_ someone else it could be, someone who wasn’t any of them… what was Shintaro’s power for, but for giving him these sorts of hunches? In that case, was it really Haruka, after all…? “Besides, he used Haruka because his ability was the most useful, right? So if he could do that again, I don’t see why he’d go for someone without another ability he could make use of. Since he’s already killed Shuuya already, he’s not exactly taking his time…”

“I’m just saying I don’t think we need to suspect Haruka just yet. Though, it is worrisome that he’s disappeared. Definitely, with the two of you split up, you’re both in much more danger…”

Takane’s gaze fell and she fidgeted. “Ugh, I feel like this is all my fault… if I just hadn’t left him alone, he wouldn’t have… wandered off, or whatever stupid thing he did! Arg, Haruka, why is your cellphone off now of all times?!”

“You said you’re at a tournament, right? He didn’t turn it off because he’s playing a match, did he?”

At Tsubomi’s question, both Shintaro and Takane’s eyes went wide, before they slowly turned to give each other the same flat look.

_Ah, Haruka is definitely the sort of person to misread the tension of the situation and do something as absentminded as that._

Probably, both of them were thinking something along those lines.

“… You know what? I’m going to go back and see if I can find him where they’re holding the official matches.”

“Ah… alright. But, let us know, either way…”

“Yeah. Will do.”


	11. 憂晴しバランスⅡ [Usabarashi Balance Ⅱ] - Diversion Balance Ⅱ

She lifted her head and immediately stood up, but had to pause to steady herself as her head gave a small spin. Was she tired already? It felt like she’d been through a lot today. And the tournament was still on its first round… ah, this didn’t bode well for tomorrow, after all.

Takane made her way back towards the main area, this time heading all the way in towards the console where they were running the official matches. It seemed that at this point, a lot of the crowd was gathered around there, though she didn’t recognize either of the players so it probably wasn’t actually that interesting of a match. She glanced around instead, then nudged someone who was standing nearby her, also watching the main screen. “Hey, uh, do you know if Konoha has already had a match?”

He shook his head. “No, sorry. I just got here like five minutes ago.”

“Ah, okay. Thanks.”

She was about to move deeper into the crowd when a hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her back suddenly. She didn’t mean to scream, but she screamed, and by the time she’d spun around to come face-to-face with Haruka, a good number of people were staring at the two of them. “Ah! Sorry, Takane!”

“Wha—!! Ah—!!! Don’t scare me like that! Geeze!” She knew she was a bright red, but before they made too much more of a scene, it was her turn to grab Haruka and start dragging him away. “Come on, let’s… ah… you made me really worried, you know?! What happened to your phone?!”

“My phone?” Haruka tipped his head to the side, his usual smile still on his face. “Ah, I turned it off so I wouldn’t get distracted during the match! I really want to do my best so I can face you in the finals, Takane!”

She felt her face go even redder, and it wasn’t from any embarrassment. “Eh?! On _purpose?!_ Don’t you even realize the position we’re in?! What if something had happened to you?! I… You worried all of us, idiot!”

“Hmm…? Ah! You’re right! I didn’t realize…! Ah, I’m sorry, Takane. I didn’t even think about it…” And now that smile was gone, and Takane felt her heart sink just the slightest along with it.

“Well… just, think a bit more next time, okay? And turn it on, so I know where you are and stuff… I promise not to bother you during your matches. But, if something were to happen to you…”

Ah, she couldn’t even finish that. It was too embarrassing.

“A-anyway, I need to tell Shintaro I found you. Don’t go wandering off without me again, got it?!”

“Right, I got it!”

She wasn’t quite sure he fully understood, but she didn’t really know any better way to get it through to him.

 

* * *

 

She’d said that, but with the first round underway, it was much easier for Haruka to stay close to the front. She didn’t go quite so far as to stay with him, but every so often, Takane used her ability to make sure that Haruka was still around the same place. As long as his phone didn’t leave the area, and there was no commotion, he was probably okay, right? Right.

Meanwhile, she could check in with Shintaro for both of them, and Shintaro could vouch for Tsubomi. So in that way, all of them were keeping track of each other, right? … Right.

There was something about it that didn’t sit right with her, but she wasn’t sure why, or what she’d do about it.

 

* * *

 

“Ah, Master! It’s your sister!” She managed to say it even before the phone started ringing.

Actually, incoming calls were a kind of unpleasant experience when she was in a phone. It was like someone knocking on the front door of the house you were in, if the knock reverberated through the entire structure. Or, if the phone was on vibrate, it was much more like an earthquake. Causing the noise herself and having it happen because of something else were two completely different things.

“Hmm? Why’s she calling me? Isn’t her concert supposed to start around now…?” Suddenly his eyes widened. “Ah, it wouldn’t be…?!”

He quickly picked up, but the tone that greeted them was nothing but cheerful.

“Hey, big brother! I just knew you’d pick up!”

“—Huh?” He seemed taken aback by her tone, and his momentary panic melted into confusion. “Why would I… Aren’t you busy now?”

“Haha, well! My manager gave me a quick break before I go on. Ah, that’s right! Hiyori was here! Isn’t it great? You should also watch my concert! I think they’re streaming it live online too, but you can watch it in the living room if not!”

“Momo, I’m… not at home. Listen, I—”

“Eh?! Big brother isn’t at home?! What sort of miracle is this?!”

Wow, she really did sound genuinely surprised…

Shintaro flushed a bright red. “D-don’t say things like that as if I’m still not leaving the house any more! But, more important than that—!”

“—Huh? Ah, already?! Sorry, big brother, I have to go now! You should find a TV and watch! Wish me luck!”

But it seemed Momo was as oblivious as ever, as before Shintaro could even get out any sort of warning, the call disconnected. He lowered the phone from his ear and stared at it in shock, as if he couldn’t believe that she’d hung up. A second later, he was calling her back.

“Hey, Momo! _Momo!”_ But she didn’t pick up, and as it went to voicemail, he clenched his hand around his phone and hung up. “… _Dammit.”_

Takane stared up at him from the screen. “Hey, don’t break it, Master.”

He stared at the phone for another few seconds, then pressed a hand to his face. “... I didn’t even get to tell her about her ability.”

“Well… it’s lucky for her, isn’t it? If she has a concert. It’ll mean she’ll do really well again.”

“That’s not the point here. It’s not the point here!”

“Kisaragi, don’t yell at her for trying to cheer you up.”

Well, it wasn’t that Takane had said it particularly to cheer Shintaro up. It had been as much to make herself feel better as anything else. If she had spoken up, would Momo have realized what was going on? Or if she’d gone into her phone, definitely…

Shintaro let out a sigh and slumped a little further into whatever he was sitting on, and Takane shifted awkwardly. “I’m gonna check Haruka’s phone and then head back to my body for a bit, I think. If I’m away too long, someone might get suspicious…”

“… Sure. Okay.”

She spent another few seconds staring up at Shintaro, but just as he started to open his mouth to say something, she vanished from the device.

Haruka’s phone was still black when she located it. It was just how she’d left it. Same location on the GPS, same blackness covering the screen, same muffled sounds of people playing or cheering at a video game. Were they still only on the first round? At least, the last time she’d lifted her head up, they’d reached the point where people were starting to get eliminated.

Well, if there were this many people and rounds took this long, it was a good thing that they’d spread it out over so many nights. Takane wondered if they’d expected this big a turnout all along, or if it had caught them by surprise. In the original invitation, she seemed to recall it only being three nights long…

She straightened up and immediately rolled her shoulders. Ugh, she felt so stiff.

… But, it was a little scary to realize how quickly she found herself again thinking things like ‘In that other body, I don’t have to worry about aches like this.’ Back when she first got her body back, even the act of holding something, running her fingers through her hair, or feeling her feet on the floor… each one was a precious experience she had gone without for two whole years. The eating she’d hated and the sleep she had so desperately wanted to push away were returned to her and she’d welcomed them back.

After four years, she’d forgotten that they were precious things that meant she was truly alive.

She stood up and made her way back to the consoles.

Koichi wasn’t around, so she sat down next to a small group made entirely of people she didn’t recognize and watched them playing against each other for a little while. They were better than the average player, she thought, but not even the best of them was really on the level of being competitive in tournaments. Still, she watched them because it was kind of nice to see those who hadn’t thrown their whole lives away becoming the absolute best they could be at these sorts of games. The sort of people with natural talent that hadn’t really bothered to waste the time required to hone it.

It was sort of something she envied.

“Oh, hey! Do you want a turn?”

One of them held out a controller in her direction, and she was startled enough that she didn’t respond for a moment. “Ah—ah, no, I’m fine, thanks. Just watching.”

“You sure? We’re not that good, so there’s no need to be shy!”

Ah, was that how they saw it? She let out an awkward laugh that probably sounded a little too fake. “No, that’s not it. I’m fine, really. Don’t worry about me. I want to watch, that’s all.”

She received a weird look in return, but they didn’t press the matter.

After watching them play a couple more matches, she decided it was about time to wander away and see if she could find Haruka. With the tournament well underway, though, the crowding near the front had become too much trouble to push through. Try as she might, she couldn’t really get in closer without possibly putting her elbow into someone’s stomach, so after a couple minutes, she gave up on the attempt. His cellphone still hadn’t moved, anyway.

 

* * *

 

The tournament served as a good distraction for getting her mind off of the grim reality of the situation that all of them were in. Maybe it had actually done too good a job. Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed those things so far into the back of her mind.

She’d almost completely forgotten about Momo’s concert until she overheard a pair of people discussing it, speaking in hushed tones that only grabbed her attention because they had been so quietly frantic.

Once she’d seen the news article for herself, though, Takane couldn’t find a place to put her head down fast enough.

“Master!! _Master!!!”_

“Ene—what the _hell_ are you doi—?!”

“Momo’s been attacked!”

“—Eh?!”

She already had the article open for him, and Shintaro’s face immediately blanched. Shintaro and Tsubomi both read it, eyes widening more with each sentence. Though, it seemed Shintaro wasn’t even through with the article before he focused back on Takane.

“… Haruka…” He swallowed. “Ene, where’s Haruka?”

“Huh? He’s at the tournament—”

“Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?!”

“Well—I—think so. I haven’t seen him very recently, but—”

Shintaro gave his phone such a violent shake, Takane was surprised he didn’t throw it straight onto the ground. Though she couldn’t feel the movement, exactly, the way it jostled the image on the screen in front of her made her give a small yelp and gave her a slightly disorienting feeling. _“Dammit!_ I should’ve… I should have seen this. What’s this stupid ability even for, if I can’t save anyone…?!”

“Whoa—Master! Calm down! Little sister might not ev—!”

“If you’re going to tell me she might not be dead, you’re wrong.”

Ah. His eyes were red again.

Takane closed her mouth and lowered her gaze. “… I…”

“Go find Haruka.”

She winced, and looked up again slowly. He was looking down at her with such cruel eyes, and even the fact that Tsubomi seemed to be glaring at him for it didn’t change the way it made her body that couldn’t feel any sensation go cold. “Kisaragi—”

“Find him _now_ , Ene.”

Even as he said it with such a strict tone, his hand was shaking.

“… I know you’re really mad at yourself, but that doesn’t mean you should take it out on me or Haruka.”

His eyes went wide, but before he could do or say anything else, she had left his phone behind.

 

* * *

 

She hesitated a moment, but swallowed her fear and finally buzzed the phone. There was no response, and after a couple seconds, she buzzed it again, a little stronger this time. It didn’t sound like he was in the middle of a match, so surely, it wouldn’t be like he left his phone behind somewhere or anything like that—

… would it?

She buzzed it a third time, but just then, the black finally fell away from the screen and Haruka’s face came into focus. “Ah, it _was_ buzzing! I thought you said you were going to leave it alone, so I haven’t been paying attention… Sorry…”

“No, ah… I did say that! But, this is an emergency! Can you get out of the crowd?”

Ah, the couple people she could see around him seemed to be staring.

“Can you give me ten minutes? My second match is up next! Ah, Takane, did I tell you before? I already won the first one!”

“You’re only on your second…?” Was this tournament really so long? But she shifted as she thought it over for a moment. “… Sure, I guess that’s probably fine. But, call Shintaro right after you’re done, okay?!”

“Alright! Wish me luck, Takane!”

He looked so cheerful and enthusiastic like that. It was such a stark contrast to the nerves that the rest of them seemed to be feeling that it caught her by surprise. But… maybe that was better, right? He could just focus on the tournament, and once that was over, he could worry with the rest of them…

That was just how Haruka was, right? That happy, carefree attitude that seemed to brush even the worst situations off with ease. It wasn’t that he wasn’t taking this seriously. It was just that he knew that taking it seriously or not wouldn’t change anything at this point.

Or maybe that’s what she was hoping he felt.

“Ah… good luck. Then, I’m gonna be in Shintaro’s phone.”

Though she was more than a little nervous about going back.

Well, she’d committed to it, so there wasn’t any other real choice but to follow through.

She returned to Shintaro’s phone to find him searching the internet for more articles about the incident.

“He’s at the tournament for sure, so you don’t need to yell anymore.”

At her words, Shintaro winced, gaze flicking to her and then away awkwardly. “Uh… look. Um…” He glanced in Tsubomi’s direction, and she gave him a serious look in return. He turned away quickly, but it took a few more seconds before he finally brought his gaze back to Takane. “… Sorry. About before. I guess I was just… frustrated. I… couldn’t save Shuuya, or Momo, or… anyone. I don’t even remember who else is in danger. It’s just…”

He lifted his free hand, looking at his palm for a few seconds before clenching his hand into a fist.

“All of you can control your abilities, and help out, in your ways… and here I am. All I’m good for is remembering, and I can’t even do that right. Everything… comes too late, to be of any use…”

“Hey.”

He looked back to her.

“In that case, don’t you just need to see more to remember? In that case, let’s get you more information. We can at least start from there. You said things are different anyway, right? So it’s not like you’d be useful at this point anyway.”

Shintaro glanced away again, his brow still furrowed. Ah, he was really taking this hard, wasn’t he? He probably felt like it was all on him to save everyone. That was sort of the type of guy he’d become, hadn’t he? It was so different from four years ago.

Or maybe it wasn’t that different after all.

“I’m going to agree with Ene, here. You said Shuuya wasn’t … supposed to die until tonight. So, even if you’d remembered that before seeing him, you wouldn’t have known to stop it, would you? I’m sure ‘he’ did other things differently, too. So it’s not entirely on your shoulders, or… something stubborn-sounding like that.”

Although, even as she said it, Takane could tell Shintaro was having a hard time believing such a thing.

In his shoes, though, she couldn’t say she wouldn’t feel the same. As it was, it felt like her own power was far too useless to actually save anyone. At best, she was keeping everyone in contact… but ‘everyone’ wasn’t even _everyone_ , was it? Ayano and Kosuke both weren’t responding, Marry didn’t have a cellphone of her own, and Hibiya wasn’t even around. Meanwhile, Momo and Shuuya were both already…

“Would going to the concert venue help at all?”

Shintaro and Takane both turned to Tsubomi.

“We don’t exactly have many options, do we? Now that we’ve also checked Kosuke’s place. It’s not too far away, you said, right?”

“N… no, it’s not…”

“Then, can you think of anywhere else to go? Unless we want to go see Enomoto and Kokonose in person. Though, I can’t imagine that being very helpful at this point, or at least it probably wouldn’t help as much as seeing what happened at the concert…”

“… Better than standing around, I guess…”

Tsubomi seemed a little bit satisfied at the answer she’d come up with, though given the situation, she didn’t quite manage an actual smile. “Then it’s settled. Ene, are you heading back to the tournament soon?”

“Hm? Ah, no. I told Haruka to call Master when he was done with his match, so that shouldn’t take too much longer. And that way Master can interrogate him to his heart’s content.”

Though she gave Shintaro a very deliberate glare as she said it, as if daring him to actually try it. Well, if he did, she could probably still get into a few of his private folders. So he wouldn’t be able to do it without fear of repercussions. From his expression, he seemed to understand.

“Let’s head to the bus, then. If I’m not mistaken, there should be one in six minutes…”

 

* * *

 

Maybe they should have expected Hibiya to be there. Hadn’t Momo said something about Hiyori, after all? And the two of them had been glued at the hip the last time Takane had seen them. Or perhaps it was more like Hibiya following her around on a leash he’d made himself.

Either way, thanks to him, the plan to snoop around the concert venue had been cut off pretty quickly.

“I say we just leave him. It’s his fault for staying asleep so long.”

She probably shouldn’t have been so surprised that both Shintaro and Tsubomi fixed her with glares, but Shintaro’s voice came out with far more anger than she was expecting. “Dammit! What part of ‘people are dead’ hasn’t sunk in yet?! We’re not going to just leave him alone when he’s unconscious to get easily picked off—!”

“M-Master, it was a joke!” Though when she’d said it, she hadn’t entirely meant it as one. “It’s just, if we’re all here, then we can’t go looking or anything—”

“So take Haruka and go do something! I’m not sitting on my ass here because I want to…!”

“Kisa—”

“Shintaro.” Haruka had managed to contact Shintaro just before they’d gotten off the bus, and now he spoke up from the other end of the call going on Shintaro’s phone. Probably, he hadn’t heard the way Tsubomi had started to say something with the delay. “I think Takane was just trying to cheer you up, wasn’t she? She should apologize, since it upset you instead, but she was only trying to help.”

Ah. The way that Haruka said that made her feel really, really guilty for lying about it. She fidgeted.

“Go on, Takane. Apologize.”

When Haruka said it like that, she really didn’t have any other option, did she? She hesitantly lifted her gaze enough to meet Shintaro’s eyes. “… Sorry for making you mad.”

“… You know, you’ve given me the exact same look before when caught halfway through encrypting my files and not even stopping, so it’s hard to take it with any sincerity now.”

“Eh?! But I’m being honest this time! Master, that’s totally unfair!”

“Even if you’re honest with this apology, it won’t change your behavior, will it?!” But somehow, the legitimate anger seemed to be gone from his face, now full of his usual frustration but nothing so dark as before.

“How am I supposed to sleep when you’re all being so loud…?!”

Hibiya’s sudden interjection caught all of them by surprise, and for a moment, all of them went silent. Maybe they were waiting for him to say more, or sit up, or something like that. But he rolled over on the bench they had left him on, covered his head with his hands, and didn’t say anything else.

Tsubomi walked over to him, and after hesitating a moment, gently shook his shoulder. “Hey, Hibiya. Are you okay?”

“‘Course I’m…”

He rolled onto his back, and it seemed as if he suddenly realized his situation as he caught sight of Tsubomi. His entire body jolted and his eyes went wide.

“… Ah…!” He turned away from them and started making some sounds that came off as very similar to vomiting.

“H-Hibiya!” Tsubomi startled and hesitantly took a step closer, then glanced over her shoulder back at them, her face full of worry and concern. Ah, she really did care for the rest of them like a mother in some ways. She turned back to Hibiya, but didn’t reach out to touch him again.

A few moments later Hibiya slowly sat up, and for the first time seemed to notice that Shintaro was still there, too.

“That didn’t sound too good. Hold on a second; I’ll get you some water.”

His gaze flicked towards her then back to Shintaro as Tsubomi moved away towards a set of vending machines nearby.

“He’s awake now? Is he alright?” Ah, that was right. Haruka couldn’t see anything from where he was…

“He looks alright from here, at least. Maybe a little dirty, but that’s what happens to kids.”

At the sound of her voice, Hibiya narrowed his eyes. Did he not realize she was there? Or maybe, it was because this was the first time he was seeing her use her power in four years. Maybe both.

“You’re still doing that weird thing?”

“Hey, you don’t get to call it weird!”

“It is kind of weird, though, isn’t it?”

“Haruka, you be quiet!”

“It’s definitely weird.”

“Master, you shut up!”

Ah, they were ganging up on her…

But Hibiya was making an annoyed face and began to pull himself up from the bench. “Thanks, but, I’m fine now, so—”

“No you’re not. Sit back down.”

Even Takane jumped a little with the suddenness with which Tsubomi had seemed to appear in front of Hibiya and thrust a bottle of water into his face. Had that been her power? Or maybe, she was just so distracted that she hadn’t even noticed…

Hibiya hesitated, but finally took the water and began to drink.

“You’ve been out for a while. We were worried about you. Was it exhaustion?”

He finished off his long sip of water before answering unenthusiastically. “Maybe. I spent so long looking for Hiyori that I didn’t even have dinner. You two… haven’t seen her, have you?” It seemed he was trying not to be too hopeful as he asked it. Tsubomi, too, picked up on that.

“No, we haven’t… Sorry.”

It wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear, and he turned to the side, a frustrated glare crossing his features. “Fine, then. Thanks for the help, but I need to go—”

“You need to finish your water and then tell us what happened.”

That was surprisingly strict. It seemed Tsubomi could get even a difficult kid like Hibiya to listen to her, as after a moment of hesitation he obediently took another sip.

“Ah, Commander, aren’t you being too harsh on him?”

She wanted to scold Haruka for that, when he couldn’t see the sort of state that Hibiya was about to try to wander off while in, but Tsubomi seemed more than willing to speak up as well. She crossed her arms and glanced over her shoulder, though again Haruka would be able to see neither of those. “He passed out right in front of us. I’m not about to believe he’s recovered after just a nap.”

“So now that you’re up, can you tell us about what you saw?”

… Shintaro really had no tact at all. Hibiya’s face immediately clouded over.

“And if I don’t want to answer?” He angrily dropped the water bottle, still a third full, next to him. “Isn’t it just convenient for all of you? You didn’t have to watch. You didn’t have to see anything like that. You didn’t even help me find Hiyori, and you just want me to answer your stupid questions!”

“Are they really that stupid if they can save someone else?”

“I don’t—!!” But he cut himself off there, even as he continued to glare at Tsubomi. Ah, it sounded like he was about to say something in anger that he’d quickly regret.

Silence hung over the group for several seconds, and Shintaro took the pause to try a different approach. “Hey, Hibiya. When’s the last time you saw Hiyori?”

“Huh?” He turned to glare at Shintaro, eyes narrow with suspicion. “Why are you asking?”

“Ah—well. You said you were looking for her, right?”

He held the glare a few more seconds, before exhaling a puff of breath as he deflated a little. Hibiya’s gaze dropped to the bench, and he grabbed the water bottle and took another sip of water before finally answering. “This morning. Maybe around… 9 or 10. That’s about when she left, I think. … I haven’t seen her since.”

“10, huh…”

Tsubomi turned to Shintaro, and she seemed to realize something. “H-hey—”

But she went silent as she caught Shintaro’s gaze, and after a moment, she glanced to Hibiya before dropping her gaze to the ground.

“… You’re not… you’re not saying she’s already dead, are you?! Hey!”

“I… don’t know. At least, without a body, it’s still uncertain, isn’t it? So, it might not be useful to worry, just yet…”

“She’s not dead! She can’t be—!”

But he cut off as a beeping noise rang out from Shintaro’s phone that caused Takane to startle. She pulled her attention away from Hibiya to see what had caused it, and caught sight of a familiar name on the screen.  “Ah, it’s Ayano…!”

Shintaro hesitated only another second. “Haruka, I’ll call you back, okay?!”

“Oka—!” But he didn’t even wait for Haruka to finish before he cut him off and switched over to the other call.

“Ayano?!”

There was a half a second of silence, but then from the other end of the call came a sudden sharp bang, followed almost immediately by a clattering noise. Every single one of them jumped.

One, two, three seconds passed in stunned silence.

“Hey…” Four. “Ayano…?” Five, six. “Ayano…?!”

“I’m going over there!”

Takane had been hoping, praying that when she’d arrived in the phone, she might see something like before. The innocuous clock high on the wall, with nothing of note in the room. Instead, everything was black. The phone’s screen from behind her illuminated some surface that was pressed right up against the display, letting her see nothing of the outside world. There wasn’t even another camera for her to look out of.

Suddenly she heard the distinct click of a cell phone camera. On instinct she looked around where she was, but… no, it had to be coming from another phone. She startled, reached out to find it, to no avail—was it off the network?!—and instead switched the phone to speaker. “Hey, who’s there?! There’s someone there with Ayano, isn’t there?! Whoever you are, _answer me!”_

But the only reply she received was an echoing sound of footsteps fading out. She started shouting something else but was soon cut off by the sound of a door opening, and then, shutting.

All of a sudden, the entire room was unsettlingly quiet. It seemed even those on the other end of the cell phone call were holding their breath, as only the soft hiss of ambient noise came through the line.

“… Ayano…? Hey… h-hey, you’re there, right? Ayano? You’re still there…? Come on…! Say something…!”

She wasn’t going to cry.

She _wasn’t going to cry_ …

“Ene… you should come back. I’m gonna call back Haruka.”

Shintaro’s voice was soft. Takane felt her heart squeeze in response. There was only one thing that it could mean when he said it like that. She had hoped, maybe, that there was somehow that this wasn’t what it sounded like. That, somehow, it had all been a trick.

Wouldn’t that have just been wonderfully convenient?

Bit by bit the reality was seeping in. All of them were actually in so much danger, weren’t they? The same danger that had nearly killed all of them so long ago. But this time… they’d already lost, hadn’t they…? She hadn’t taken it seriously at all, but the truth was that it was far more serious than she could actually handle.

She never should have left Haruka alone, after all.

“Don’t bother. I’m just gonna go back to my body. The phone’s on the ground I think, and she doesn’t have a back camera, so I can’t see anything here. So don’t bother asking me about it.”

She took a moment to hold back a sob, then hung up the call.


	12. バリエーションスパイラル – Variation Spiral

Haruka made his way back to the table that Takane’s body was at to find that she was already awake. It wasn’t obvious from far away, but when he approached, she opened her eyes and looked up at him, though she kept her head in her folded arms.

It looked a lot like she had been crying, and he paused for a moment before sitting down next to her and putting on a smile. “Welcome back! How is Ayano doing?”

She answered the question by burying her face in her arms, so when she spoke it came out muffled. “Dead, probably…”

A chill ran up his spine, and he froze. “… Eh?”

“Dead. Shot. Bang. Right as Shintaro picked up her call.”

“That’s… strange…”

She lifted her head again and cast him a confused look. “What is?”

“No, ah, I just… I’m not sure. Something about that…”

There _was_ something about it that was strange, though, wasn’t there? Something that, in his inexperience, he couldn’t quite put his finger on. But in that case, he’d have expected Takane to know what sort of thing was bothering him, because she was the one who understood these sorts of things. But from her reaction, it seemed she too didn’t know, leaving just him with his confusion.

Her eyes narrowed for a moment, and then she glanced away. Was she avoiding looking at him?

“Hey, Haruka…”

“What is it, Takane?”

She hesitated a moment, then sat up suddenly, gaze glued to the table in front of her.

“Where have you been? I expected you to be here when I got back…”

“Ah, I was playing my next match. I texted Shintaro when he didn’t call me back. I thought you’d see it too that way. I’m sorry…”

She still didn’t look at him, still keeping her eyes on the table as she mumbled. “Kind of convenient…”

“Hmm?”

“Ah, nothing…”

She glanced to the side, looking at one of the monitors where the current match was being projected. Haruka turned as well, and they both watched in silence for a little while. Ah, it was one of the top seeded competitors. He was doing really well this match. Wouldn’t Haruka have to compete with him today? Probably. Well, at least he hadn’t lost yet, so he still had one chance to lose a match without being out of the tournament.

“Aren’t you going to say something?”

He turned back to Takane, but she was still looking at the monitor. “About what?”

“You know, about…” but she only vaguely waved her hand instead of clarifying, leaving Haruka no less confused than before.

He tipped his head to the side a little. “About…?”

“I dunno. Ayano, maybe. Or ‘that guy’. Or the way… argh, never mind!” She was burying her head in her arms again.

“Ah, well… I’m not sure what there really is to say, you know? What sort of thing are you supposed to say when a friend dies?”

He didn’t actually know the answer to it, so he looked to the person who had been his guidance for so long. She seemed to realize after a moment that he was asking her in seriousness, and she glanced at him for a second. “No idea. Usually it doesn’t happen enough that we really have something to say for it.”

“Alright, then. But, Shintaro will definitely help everyone out next time, right? Because that’s the special thing that only he is able to do. So I’m sure it will be fine then!”

“… Do you even realize what you’re saying…?”

But before he could answer, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, buried her face against his neck, and sobbed.

Ah, for someone who had been close enough to Ayano to really care about her, this sort of thing must be incredibly, unfathomably painful…

 

* * *

 

He wound up making it to the top four of the night, despite losing one of his matches. Takane stayed in her body for the rest of the time, at least what he was aware of, and it was well past midnight by the time the two of them were heading back to their hotel room. The adrenalin had kept him going for most of the night, but now that they were away from the crowds and it was just the two of them again, Haruka felt exhausted.

“Hey.”

“Hmm?” He’d already crawled into bed and had almost put his head on the pillow when Takane spoke up, a little quietly, and he straighted up again and glanced at her just in time to see her turn away from him.

“Do you want to swing by Shintaro’s place tomorrow? It should be fine as long as we’re back by 9 or so, right?”

It took him a moment to realize what she was talking about. “Ah, to check in on everyone, you mean? That sounds like a good idea to me!” Thinking about it, he couldn’t help but smile at the chance to spend time with his friends again. “I haven’t seen everyone in over a year, too!”

“We’re not just doing this for fun, you know!” Though he could tell that she was smiling a little, now, too. Even though it was under these circumstances, it seemed that even she was a little bit happy at the prospect of actually seeing the rest of them in person. “I’ll let Shintaro know, then. Let’s try to head out by 10, okay?”

“Alright!”

 

* * *

 

“It feels like it’s been so long that I don’t even remember this place!”

“That’s because that’s the wrong house.”

Haruka turned and realized that, in fact, Takane had moved to the opposite side of the street from him and was walking up to one of the houses on that side instead. He let out a sheepish laugh and followed her, scratching the back of his head. “I guess that only proves my point, though, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s only been two years, but, I guess that can be a long while, too…”

She trailed off a little awkwardly, but then she was pressing the doorbell.

It was answered by a woman that Haruka only vaguely recognized. “Ah, you two must be Shintaro’s friends. He said to tell you to just head up to his room.” She stood to the side to let them in, giving a slightly strained smile as she did so. Haruka thought about saying something, but decided against it. Probably, Shintaro wasn’t the only one having a hard time. Since Momo had also died last night…

Takane entered first and Haruka followed right after her, letting her lead. Soon the two of them were heading up the stairs, and Takane didn’t even bother knocking before opening the door.

“Yo.”

Shintaro gave a soft grunt of acknowledgement, looking up from his computer to the two of them. Again without asking for any sort of permission, she entered and sat down on his bed, and again Haruka followed.

Ah, the two of them seemed to be closer than he’d expected… or had he misunderstood the social rules surrounding this sort of thing? Sometimes, it was hard to figure out which case it was…

“… I remembered more last night.”

Shintaro glanced away from the two of them for a moment, then back, mostly keeping his gaze on Takane. She crossed her legs and settled back a little, making an expression that seemed a bit annoyed. “Yeah?”

“It could still be Haruka, so don’t give me that look.”

The statement made her deflate a little, and Haruka glanced back and forth between them. “Ah—me?”

Slowly, they both turned to him. After a moment, Takane shifted a little and looked away. “Well, it could be me, too, so you’re in good company. Or something like that. At least, as far as Shintaro knows, and I… can’t exactly say for sure myself, either.”

“Since… I wouldn’t remember it, right? Or, whoever it is…”

Thinking about it like that… it _could_ be him, couldn’t it? If, during some of the matches, he lost control… would such a thing happen? It had felt so cruel, so violent, so deliberate last time…

But just because it had didn’t mean it would again. He could only remember such a thing happening once. Even though, apparently, it had happened many, many times before.

He would never claim to remember every single match he had watched in the tournament last night. What if, during those moments when he wasn’t really focused…

“Hiyori.”

Both his and Takane’s attentions snapped back to Shintaro in an instant.

“‘If it’s not Haruka, the next most likely person would be Hiyori.’ That was one of the conclusions that Shuuya left behind last time.”

Takane glanced towards Haruka before turning back to Shintaro. “Why her? I mean, I’m not complaining to not be prime suspect #2, but…”

“A snake without a person. A person without a snake.” He shifted a little in his chair. “Hibiya said Hiyori left early in the morning. Since then, we know nothing about her whereabouts. Shuuya was dead before the afternoon. Thinking about it from the perspective of, ‘these events have only happened a few times’, doesn’t it become much more convenient for ‘him’ to possess Hiyori? Maybe we were never checking in on Haruka at exactly the right time to rule him out as a suspect, but at the same time, making every deadline such that we didn’t get suspicious is something I’d only expect ‘him’ to be able to do with more knowledge of our own behaviors. Meanwhile, Hiyori has moved completely freely. That’s not to say it can’t still be you,” he looked at Haruka, then turned back to Takane, “or you, so I don’t think we can let our guard down yet. But, she’s a possibility that we’ve largely disregarded until now, so…”

“… Speaking of the brat.” Takane gave a soft huff. “Not to be a downer or anything like that, but… ah… while we’re talking about possibilities, are you sure he’s really dead?”

“… Huh?”

“Well… that’s what his power is, right? To make you think you’re seeing something you’re not. So, what I’m asking is, are you sure he was actually dead when you found him?”

Had that not been something Shintaro had thought about? Probably, from the way his face went pale, it wasn’t something he had thought about before. Maybe that brought another possibility back into consideration? Although, Haruka hated that they even had to think about these things at all…

“N… no. No, but… ah. Definitely, he died before I did, last time. Because, Marry… when we die, our snakes go back to Marry. So, last time, she could tell that he was dead…”

“Ah. Maybe that’s a relief, then…” though Takane certainly didn’t sound relieved. Maybe she’d wanted someone else to point the blame at so there would be less suspicion on either of them. But, that wasn’t useful when it really _could_ be either of them, was it?

“Couldn’t we ask Marry right now, then?”

Shintaro shifted awkwardly. “She doesn’t keep a cellphone, remember? Though, I guess I could try calling Kosuke… Tsubomi said he didn’t pick up yesterday, though.”

“Oh. So how did you ask her last time?”

He opened his mouth for a second, eyes wide, and then closed it. It took a few more seconds before he spoke again. “I… It was in person. So, maybe, we went to her place…? We tried yesterday and there was no answer, but, maybe today…”

Takane stood up and dusted off the front of her skirt. “Sounds like as good a thing as any to try right now. I can’t really say I ever trusted that Shuuya brat, so, I’m not going to believe he’s really dead until someone knows for sure.”

“Okay. I’ll call Tsubomi, and we can head out.”

He lifted his phone to his ear just as there was a knock on the door.

“Shintaro? I’ve brought some tea for you and your friends.”

“Ah. We were actually about to lea—”

“Oh, tea? I’ve been so thirsty!” Takane suddenly exclaimed with such a fake cheer that both of them turned to her in shock just in time to see her quickly sit down again. But that seemed to be the cue for Shintaro’s mother to open the door, smiling as happily as she could force herself to look.

“Well, I hope you enjoy it, then. I’ll leave it right here for you.”

Takane didn’t drop the smile until his mother had closed the door behind her again, at which point she shot a glare at Shintaro. “Your mother tries her best for you, so you’re not allowed to squander it.”

“Where did that come from all of a sudden…?”

“… Over a year of watching things you didn’t get to see because you were asleep.”

Shintaro’s gaze flicked away guiltily, and after several more seconds he lowered the phone from his ear. “She didn’t pick up. Guess I’ll text her and we can go.”

“ _After_ we drink.”

“… After we drink.”

 

* * *

 

It was the same hideout as before, with 107 marking the unit. Considering how large it was and the fact that it had once been the home of five people, Haruka imagined it must now be really quiet with only two.

Shintaro was the one to knock.

“Ah, Kosuke? Marry? Hello?” He knocked again, a little louder this time. “Are you two home?”

He went quiet, and eventually turned back to Takane and Haruka.

“Guess… maybe not. Maybe we found her somewhere else. She could’ve been at the park, maybe. I know we were there…”

But a sound behind him made him turn, and they all noticed a pink eye peeking out at them through the cracked doorway. “Ah, it’s everyone…! I wasn’t expecting to see you all…”

She hesitated, and Shintaro took a step back towards the door. “Hey, Marry. Can we come in?”

“Ah! Yes, come in!”

She stepped away from the door, but as soon as she spun around it was as if her feet got tangled together and she fell to the floor, blocking them from entering once again. Shintaro waited a good several seconds for her to move before finally giving her a small nudge. “Ah, hey… are you okay…?”

“Y-yes, fine!” She scrambled out of the way and finally pulled herself back to her feet, flustered. Still, she couldn’t meet his gaze again.

“Marry, I have what might be a difficult question to answer.”

She winced, eyes going wide, gaze glued to the floor. She seemed to be shivering a little, and Haruka suddenly felt as if he should stop Shintaro, maybe. “Shintaro—”

“Who’s already dead? You can tell, right?”

Ah, she winced again. Haruka hadn’t stopped him in time.

“I’m sorry to ask you this, but it’s important.”

“Shintaro, don’t you think asking that is a little mean right now? We just got here, and I’m sure she’s not—”

“It’s okay.” She cut Haruka off, voice unsteady to the point of breaking. She was shaking where she stood, she looked so close to crying, and she had her hands clenched in her hair as if willing herself not to cover her ears, but she continued to speak anyway. “Because Shintaro sees these things, because I asked him to remember them, right? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Ah…”

Haruka couldn’t help it. He stepped forwards and wrapped his arms around her, and that was when the tears started in earnest.

“I asked you to see such terrible things over and over again… And now you’re seeing them again, right? I didn’t want this to happen again…! I didn’t want you to have to see things like this ever again…!”

“Marry. I need to know who else is already dead.”

She seemed to try to say something but could only sob loudly, her noises obscured and indistinct. It took her several long, shaky deep breaths before she could speak properly again. “E-everyone else. We’re the only ones left now. Everyone else is already gone. They’re… already gone…!”

Haruka looked up to see the way an expression of fear slowly overtook Shintaro’s face. “E-everyone?! Then, Tsubomi, and Hibiya…?!”

Marry could only nod as she continued to cry into Haruka’s chest. Ah, no wonder she was clutching him so tightly. After a moment, he started rubbing her head, and that seemed to calm her down at least a little.

Finally her grip let up and she stepped back a little. “Ah… thank you, Konoha…”

“You’re welcome. Do you want me to get you something to drink? Ah, maybe I should make tea! Although, Shintaro’s mother just made some for us, too…”

“N-no! It’s my job to make tea, since you’re the guests! So, I can…!”

But she didn’t even get through her second step towards the kitchen before giving another sob and wavering on her feet, and Haruka quickly moved forward to grip her by the shoulders and steady her. “Ah, there! How about we make tea together, then? And then we can serve it to Takane and Shintaro!”

She puffed out her cheeks a little, though she kept her gaze lowered and her eyes were still swollen from crying. “I can do it on my own! But… fine. You can help.”

 

* * *

 

It had turned out to be a good thing that he was in there with her, given how many times she nearly dropped one thing or another, and he had to snatch the tray out of her hands at one point before she sent their efforts flying and they had to start all over again. Haruka found it a slight wonder that any of the dishes remained intact at all. But between the two of them, they managed to get the tea and a full set of cups back out into the living room, and Marry flopped down next to the table.

“That was so exhausting. Ah, even working with Konoha, it felt like I had to do a lot…”

“Well, now you get to have some tea!” he said cheerfully, pouring her a cup before serving the rest of them.

Shintaro glared at it for a moment, and then turned to Takane, but she managed to mumble an icy “Don’t say anything,” under her breath before he could even speak up.

Though if Haruka were to be honest, the tea that Shintaro’s mother had made was more delicious anyway.

“Feels kind of weird to just be sitting here like this. Guess it… just doesn’t feel real, huh?” Takane shifted in her seat, mostly holding her cup in her hands and staring at it, only occasionally taking small sips of it.

“Well, it’s not like it’s the sort of thing you normally have to deal with, right? So…” Shintaro took a sip of tea as if to buy himself time to figure out his thoughts. “Of course it feels weird.”

“This is all my fault,” Marry mumbled as Haruka refilled the cup she’d already finished off. “If I had only kept the snakes, none of this would be happening…!”

“It’s not your fault,” Shintaro muttered, though even to Haruka it sounded unconvincing. “It’s… all because ‘that guy’ wants to have his way though, isn’t it? He…” but he trailed off there, eyes flashing red for an instant. “… Are there pictures again this time?”

“Eh?! _Pictures?!”_

Kneeling on the floor, Marry went completely still.

Shintaro turned to Takane. “Y-yeah! Last time, I think, there was something like that…” He trailed off, gaze drifting back to Marry.

Without saying anything, she stood up and moved to the shelves. Haruka hadn’t even noticed the cellphone connected to a charger sitting over there, but Marry unplugged it and started walking back to Shintaro. But not four steps and she suddenly tripped, and the device went flying from her hands towards the table.

“Whoa—!!” It was Haruka’s turn for his eyes to flash red, as with inhuman quickness and precision he caught the cellphone an instant before it landed straight in the pitcher still half-filled with tea. “… Wow, that was really close! Ah, that would have been bad, wouldn’t it?!”

Shintaro gave a heavy sigh. “You’re telling me… I think I had a heart attack just watching that. Ugh. Give it here.”

Haruka passed the cellphone to Shintaro and moved to sit next to him, and Takane crowded closer. Meanwhile, Marry pulled herself up to her knees but stayed where she was on the floor, gaze cast downwards. “I’m sorry…”

“Well, Haruka caught it, so there’s no prob…”

But he trailed off as the moment he woke up the phone, the three of them were greeted with a picture that made at least Haruka’s blood run cold.

It was Hibiya, surrounded by a dark puddle, with a matching stain on his head.

Shintaro swiped for the next picture, but that seemed to be the last one, so he swiped the other way instead.

This time it was Tsubomi. Same dark puddle, same stain. It might even have been the same lighting.

“Whoever it was, looks like they got both of them together.” It seemed Shintaro noticed it as well. “So even together, they were no match for him… Guess that’s not really surprising.” He swiped to the side again.

Ayano. This time the picture was lighter, so it was easier to tell that the puddle was red. And, he could tell that the wound was on her forehead…

Momo. Half-covered by something large and metal, but also completely covered in red.

The back of a figure with dark hair, who at this point could only be Kosuke, lying crumpled next to a crashed truck.

Shuuya. Red puddle, red stain. So much red.

The picture before that one seemed to be a bird on a windowsill, and Shintaro turned off the phone’s screen for a moment. “… That was… a lot of blood.”

“You’re telling me.” Takane slumped back against the couch.

“No, that… It wasn’t… quite like that, last time. Last time, only… Hibiya, was shot. The rest… it was different. They weren’t shot. He… I think he went after Shuuya earlier, this time, to get his gun…” Shintaro gave an unsteady sigh. “So, it’s probably less convenient to kill them without the gun. Which makes it less likely to be Haruka, at least, because of his ability…”

But when he glanced to the side it was Takane whom his gaze settled on.

“Can you figure out where the pictures came from?”

“… Huh?”

“If you can figure out where the pictures were sent from, or what sort of cellphone took them, or, anything that might help… you can do that sort of thing, right? With your ability.”

Takane’s look of surprise soon switched to one of determination. “Yeah. Well, I don’t know what I’ll figure out, but I can at least take a look!”

She settled back against the couch, and a moment later her eyes slid shut and her body went completely limp.


	13. 未知リターン [Michi Return] – Untold Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to post this like a month ago but kept having things come up on Saturdays oops.

Shintaro flipped back through the pictures.

Shuuya was shot. If these pictures were in order, then that would be what happened first. The very first one to die; shot by what was probably his own gun. Someone who could get into his apartment without arousing suspicion, get ahold of his gun, and use it against him. Between all of their faces and the snake’s own cunning, that didn’t narrow down anything at all. If anything, it would make Shintaro think it was Ayano. The one person Shuuya seemed closest to. But her own picture was here, too.

Kosuke was hit by a truck. He and Momo were the only ones not shot. Had it just been more convenient to kill him that way? Maybe it was something like there being other people around. Certainly, that was the case with Momo… In that way, it could have easily been faked to be an accident. Just a man suddenly stumbling into the path of a truck, and before anyone realizes what’s going on, it’s collided into him and he’s dead. Much less suspicious than a shooting, and easier to pull off in a large group of people. So even being in a crowd wasn’t safe… meaning Takane and Haruka had either been lucky, or luck had maybe had nothing to do with it.

Momo. She’d been in the spotlight, and there had been so many people around, and even still, ‘that guy’ managed to kill her. To Shintaro, it felt like he was mocking them. Like he’d done such a thing just to prove a point. Even in that sort of situation, he could still do as he pleased. He could still crush them easily. And for Momo, quite literally. No one had managed to catch him, even with that. He’d slipped in, done his work, and slipped out, without arousing enough suspicion to be notable. Far too many of them had abilities that would make such a thing easier, though it was certainly possible to do it without any abilities at all.

Ayano had been shot, right there while on the phone with him. The timing felt… too convenient, maybe. Why had she called him back, right before dying of all times? Did she realize what was about to happen to her? Had she tried to leave him a clue? If he’d picked up a second sooner, what would she have said to him? Or had she not even realized that the person standing near her was being possessed by the snake that had caused her to leap to her death so many countless times before? Had she been shot to keep her quiet, to prevent him from learning who had come to her apartment with her? She would have trusted any and all of them, much easier than Shuuya, even.

Tsubomi and Hibiya had the same lighting. And when he’d left them, they were together. So it wouldn’t be an unreasonable assumption that ‘that guy’ killed both of them around the same time. How soon after they had split up had it happened? How close had he been to getting killed along with them? Or, had ‘that guy’ waited until he’d left, to make sure there was no chance of him seeing it happen? Shintaro was the only one who would remember anything, after all. So Shintaro was the only one who he needed to avoid revealing himself to.

As much as he was trying to eliminate the possibilities through detective work, it would definitely be easier if he just managed to not be caught entirely off-guard at the very end. Even if that was just the last thing he saw before dying, before Marry reset.

But, would just knowing who ‘that guy’ was possessing be enough to save everyone?

Without any control over his ability, would he even remember such a thing before it was too late, anyway?

There were too many unanswered questions, and the stakes for not figuring them out were creeping higher and higher.

Hadn’t five of them been alive at this point last time? Now they were down to four.

Shintaro felt a chill go down his spine as another question came to mind. What were the conditions under which ‘that guy’ could change his host…?

“Ugh, now I feel like I need a shower.”

Takane sat upright, shuddered, and made a face as she rubbed her upper arms, as if she needed to warm herself up despite the comfortable temperature of the room. The sudden outburst made Shintaro startle, nearly dropping the phone, but then he turned to her with a confused expression.

“Why? What happened?”

“Well, I managed to follow the messages that the pictures arrived on back to their origin, right? Turns out it was a super sketchy site. I mean like _really_ sketchy; the kind where the owner keeps magnets by their hard drive, and criminals use it all the time, and if the government catches you using it they come and arrest you!... and things like that. You can send it a picture, or a message, or whatever, and it scrambles the metadata and sends it wherever you want. So whoever gets it has no idea where it’s coming from. And it was hard enough to find the site itself, too. And, of course, they don’t keep any records or anything like that, so the information on where the original pictures came from is long gone by now. But, ugh, even finding the stupid thing was like… chasing rats in the sewers. Disgusting pathways and disgusting company. _Ugh_. Don’t you _ever_ make me find someplace like that again then, or I’m going to post every single private file on your computer all over the bulletin boards.”

She shivered again and took a long swig of her tea as if it were alcohol she could use to drown the image from her memories.

Shintaro made a noise under his breath and turned off the screen of the phone. “… Sorry. I thought it would help, so…”

“… Yeah, well. It would’ve. Guess he was just… planning on me using my ability like this, or something like that.” She sat back and folded her arms behind her head.

“I think he planned for everyone’s. He wouldn’t be able to stay so many steps ahead of us if he didn’t.”

“So it’s no good?” Marry asked it hesitantly, peeking upwards from the floor.

“… It’s no good,” Shintaro admitted with a defeated sigh. Where did this put them? Not back at square one, per se, but maybe so close to the beginning that they might as well have not even moved at all.

A strange sound echoed through the room, and one by one they turned to Haruka.

“… Ah, um…! Do you think it would be too inconvenient to maybe have a meal right now…?”

Takane made a loud, annoyed noise and pointed accusingly at him. “Didn’t you have a huge breakfast before we set off to Shintaro’s place?! Actually, that was late enough that it was practically lunch!”

“I did, but it’s been so long that I’ve gotten hungry again! And we’ve been staying up so late that I get hungry again then, too, so maybe that was just breakfast after all…? That way, this meal can be lunch, and later on we can have dinner!”

“You just want an excuse to eat another meal, don’t you?!”

She had him there, and Haruka gave a sheepish laugh. Although, Haruka had always eaten a lot, hadn’t he? Even through all that all of them had been through, it seemed some things still didn’t change.

“Ah, well, if it’s food, then… I don’t think we have enough here to eat. Since Kosuke… was supposed to be out on a trip. So, we didn’t buy any more food before he left…” Marry seemed to be fidgeting guiltily. Well, it wasn’t like it was her fault that she could survive on just water.

“Maybe we should go out to eat, then. Since it’s not like Haruka’s going to get _less_ hungry… You haven’t eaten in a while, either, right Takane?”

She jumped just a little. “Well, ah, no, but I’m not—” but before she could get out the word ‘hungry’, her stomach made its own noise, though it barely compared to how loud Haruka’s had been. Still, it was enough to make her blush a little in embarrassment.

“It’s been a couple hours for me, too. So, we might as well.”

But it wasn’t just that all of them had become hungry. ‘That guy’ had switched to using the gun when he had the chance to, and so far the ones he’d killed that way hadn’t been around other people. So probably, if all of them were out in a crowd, he’d have to use a different tactic. Here, sitting in this room with the rest of them… well, not that they’d be willing to stay, even if he’d tried to convince them to. But they were only safer like this if it really were Hiyori. But if it weren’t…

If they went out together, he wouldn’t be able to kill them quickly, would be Shintaro’s hope. If there would be any protection that the crowd would afford him… If there would be any protection that his friends would afford him…

Maybe it shouldn’t have been so easy, how he was willing to throw their lives away in order to get the chance at the advantage next time. There were too many of them dead for Marry to not make a next time.

Probably, she was just holding out hope that some of them would survive whatever ‘that guy’ had planned.

Even though she definitely knew that such a thing wouldn’t happen in the end.

“Ah, okay. Oh, and since the places around here don’t know Haruka, we can find some place that’s all-you-can-eat!”

“Huh?” His attention was drawn back to the others and he gave Takane a flat look. “Is that how you afford Haruka’s crazy appetite…?”

“Hey, you don’t get to judge! If they say ‘all-you-can-eat’, then that’s what they mean! We’re just taking them up on their offer!”

She crossed her arms and nodded smugly, as if the matter had definitely been settled. Well, maybe it had, since Shintaro didn’t feel like it was worth arguing with her more.

 

* * *

 

While ‘all-you-can-eat’ did indeed mean all-you-can-eat, the four of them were politely but swiftly kicked out once they passed the three-hour mark in the restaurant and Haruka showed little sign of stopping. It seemed that without any limit on the food he could eat, he’d actually just keep eating forever. Or maybe he’d stop at some point, but that point did not come within three hours.

“It got late…”

Shintaro looked up at the sky, towards the sun that was most of the way through setting by now. Probably, Obon festivities would be starting up soon, if they hadn’t already. Would it be worth it to try to get the four of them to a festival, to see if he could use the crowd as a distraction? If they were going to be killed tonight anyway, maybe he could at least use what little advantage he could to learn something useful.

… Was he becoming a bit too much like ‘that guy’, thinking such a selfish thing about his friends’ lives? The thought sent a chill through him, but before he could dwell on it, Takane gave a surprised shout.

“Crap—the tournament! I have to get back there soon! I completely forgot that we’re so far away, ah…!” She was staring at her phone in distress.

“Ah, you’re right! If we miss the first round, you’ll be completely disqualified, won’t you?”

“First round?” Shintaro glanced down at his own phone. “Wait… this late? It’s well after 6.”

“Yeah, this one’s gimmick is ‘Up All Night Dead Bullet’, so today’s matches only started less than an hour ago. I mean, I should be able to make it in time, if we head back now, right? The first round took a long time last night…” She gave a nervous glance towards Haruka, who affirmed her with a cheerful nod.

“Can I come watch?!” Unexpectedly, Marry was suddenly enthusiastic about it. “This is the game that Ene’s really good at, right? I want to see!”

“Huh? Ah… yeah, I guess you can. Just, don’t get scared, or anything like that…”

… Though if Shintaro were to think about it, wasn’t he the one likely to get scare the most of all of them? He didn’t want to get dragged along… but, ah, if he didn’t go, and something happened to any of them, he wouldn’t be around to see, would he?

Ah, was this his punishment for thinking of his friends’ lives as pawns?

“—Hey, Shintaro!”

“H-huh?!” He was suddenly snapped out of his thoughts by Takane yelling in his ear.

“I asked if you’re coming! Geeze, don’t space out on us like that!”

“I—yeah.” Ah, he’d answered without even thinking about it. Now he was committed. Well, hopefully he wouldn’t do anything embarrassing like throw up at the sight of the game’s zombies, or anything like that…

Though when they started walking, it wasn’t towards the train station.

“Uh, shouldn’t we be going that way?” He pointed behind them, and Takane gave him a flat look.

“You really _were_ spaced out. Marry wants her coat.”

Shintaro felt his expression sour. “… You know it’s the middle of summer, right?”

“It can still get cold at night!” Marry puffed out her cheeks petulantly, and Shintaro rolled his eyes.

“Fine, but I’m not carrying it for you.”

 

* * *

 

Walking back through the park, the sky a deep red that was fading into blue. The temperature just a little too warm so as to be uncomfortable. There were almost no people around, and Shintaro found himself pausing in his tracks.

This was familiar.

Tsubomi, in front of him, leading the group forward.

She turned to him.

Red eyes.

His own red eyes.

What had come after that…?

He turned to look back behind him, but just as he seemed to catch movement out of the corner of his eye, a loud, sharp noise pierced the air, and he felt himself hit the ground.

Ah, shit. He’d remembered a moment too late. He tried to lift his head, to look back at the figures behind him, but everything was blur, and his head hurt so much. Voices, sensations, and none of it mattered, none of it mattered at all, he had to see, he had to _remember_ —

—remember what?

There was a rattling noise in his head, and he opened his eyes to see the display of his charging phone, shaking ever so slightly in his blurred and sleepy vision. His eyes slipped shut, only to snap open again, bright red, as the bed beneath him gave a sudden shake and the phone’s screen disappeared with a clatter.

Remember. _He remembered._

The morning of August 14 began soon after 3 AM with an earthquake.

 

* * *

 

“Shuuya!” He practically shouted the name into the phone the moment the person on the other end picked up, nearly forgetting the early hour.

“Ah, Shintaro? How unexpected to hear from you so suddenly! Ah, did the earthquake scare you awake and now you need someone to talk to? Though I should let you know I’m normally not up so late, so you got lucky this time!”

“It’s not about the earthquake. Shuuya, listen to me. This is really important.” He took a deep breath. “Move your gun to some other hiding place.”

He was greeted with a stunned silence. It felt like nearly a minute ticked by as Shuuya processed the words and gathered himself, though Shintaro knew it was probably only a few seconds. “… Eh? Ah, what’s with you saying such weird things all of a sudden?”

“Our abilities are back. ‘That guy’ is possessing… someone… I don’t know who. Not yet. But, last time, he killed you first, and used your gun to kill the rest of us. So, you have to move it. He knows wherever it is right now. And… don’t trust anyone. Because, I don’t know who he’s controlling…”

“… You say don’t trust anyone, but then how do I know I should trust you?” But the way he said it was so easy, like he was teasing. Like he was still the child who couldn’t take anything seriously. “After all, hasn’t Shintaro done some of the most terrible things of all?”

For just an instant there, that hadn’t been Shuuya’s voice. That had been a voice far more familiar than Shuuya’s. A female voice. “Did y—?”

“Well, I’ll say that I’ll trust only Shintaro for now. But you had better make such a thing worth my while, you know? Because you’re the sort of person where, if we can’t trust you, we really don’t have any hope at all. Ah, putting it that way makes you sound like the main character, don’t you think? So, what exactly is going on?”

Shintaro swallowed thickly. How fast could he convey what little he knew? He remembered, but, he didn’t remember everything. He didn’t remember _most_ things, most of what he had to. But somehow, some lingering conviction in him had pulled this much forth, pulled just enough to warn the two who had already died tonight.

That’s right. Two of them. How much time did he have? “… I’m sorry, I don’t have time to explain right now. I’ll have to tell you later. Kosuke also died before morning, last time. So I have to call him next, before it’s too late…”

Shuuya was quiet for only a second. “Fine, fine, I understand. Go save everyone. That’s your role, isn’t it? The only thing someone like you is good at.”

He hung up before Shintaro could.

 

* * *

 

“Hello?”

Shintaro felt his heart skip a beat at the sound of the voice on the other end. “Kosuke? It’s you, right?”

“Haha, were you expecting someone else?” He sounded so cheerful. Just like his usual self.

“No, I… listen. Are you… near a road right now? Or, anything like that…”

“A road?” He sounded genuinely confused, though Shintaro couldn’t really blame him for that. “No, I’m inside right now. Why?”

“Ah… Well. It’s because… our abilities are back. And, at least twice already, you’ve… been hit by a truck. So, if you can, you should probably stay away from any roads, or any place with cars…”

There was silence on the other end for a moment. “That’s going to be tough. I’m supposed to leave to do some contract work tomo… today. And before that, Marry needs some things from the store. There’s the street right in front of our place, and I’m not sure I can really get around it, or get to the store without going there. Are you sure I need to avoid _all_ of that? Is there anything else I can do instead?”

“I… I don’t know. All I know is that you get hit, sometime before Shuuya tries to call you in the morning…”

Kosuke went quiet for another few seconds. “… How long have our abilities been back, do you think?”

“… I don’t know that, either. I keep getting woken up by the earthquake, so… no later than that.”

“… Marry would be the one who knows, wouldn’t she? Ah, has she already gone outside?!”

Shintaro heard what sounded suspiciously like a door opening, and he jumped. “Kosu—!”

“Marry!”

Suddenly a screeching sound came through the phone, followed immediately by a loud crashing noise.

Shintaro felt his entire body go cold and his mouth go dry as his heart immediately sank. The ensuing silence seemed to stretch on forever. Had he been too late, after all…?!

_“Marry!”_ But Kosuke’s voice came through again, and though his tone was still panicked, Shintaro couldn’t help but admit it was an overwhelming relief. “Shintaro, I have to go, right now!”

“K-Kosuke—!”

But he’d already hung up.


End file.
